Dynamic Collisions: Directorial Montage in the Devised Work Of

DYNAMIC COLLISIONS: DIRECTORIAL MONTAGE IN THE DEVISED WORK OF

ANNE BOGART

A Thesis

ALESA MCGREGOR

Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University-Commerce in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS August 2014

DYNAMIC COLLISIONS: DIRECTORIAL MONTAGE IN THE DEVISED WORK OF

ANNE BOGART

A Thesis

ALESA MCGREGOR

Approved by:

Advisor: Carrie Klypchak

Committee: Gerald Duchovnay Michael Knight, Jr.

Head of Department: Michael Knight, Jr.

Dean of the College: Salvatore Attardo Dean of Graduate Studies: Arlene Horne iii

ABSTRACT

DYNAMIC COLLISIONS: DIRECTORIAL MONTAGE IN THE DEVISED WORK OF ANNE BOGART

Alesa McGregor, MA Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2014

Advisor: Carrie Klypchak, PhD

From its inception, early film assumed a predominantly theatrical form. However, as film progressed, both film and theatre practitioners began working to distinguish the two mediums. Yet, the relationship between film and theatre persists as cinematic techniques currently also influence the theatrical stage. Though often differentiated as two distinctly separate mediums in scholarship, it proves important to consider the ongoing dialogue that occurs between the forms.

This thesis explores the relationship of theatre and film via a specific investigation of how directorial montage manifests in contemporary devised theatre. Relying on data gleaned from a case study offering a specific set of findings, this thesis examines the devising processes of famed contemporary theatre director Anne Bogart and analyzes the resulting directorial montage in a 2014 presentation of the devised production, A Rite. Through the critical framework of montage theory, as articulated by filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein, who is most often associated with directorial montage, the analysis highlights and interrogates the presence of metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, intellectual, and vertical montage in A Rite.

While during his lifetime Eisenstein did not believe theatre capable of fully realizing his standards of montage, the major implications of the current study suggest that devised theatre can effectively offer all of Eisenstein’s concepts of montage which manifest in a number of dynamic ways. The collected data indicates that theatrical productions can offer multiple montage phases simultaneously. As well, repetition of actions in a production can serve as an overarching form of montage for the whole of the live performance. Elements of montage in a devised production can also be significantly enhanced through the physical exactitude and abilities of the performers via rigorous physical training practices. As evidenced in A Rite, these practices allow devised theatre to ultimately achieve intellectual montage, which Eisenstein considered the highest form of montage. The intellectual montage offers audiences further insight into the often complex and multi-layered meanings of devised performances. With these conclusions regarding directorial montage, this study provides a linkage between theatre and film, thereby broadening and enhancing the understanding of the current relationship between the two mediums.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee, Dr. Gerald Duchovnay and

Mr. Michael Knight, Jr., for their support of this project. I would also like to acknowledge my advisor, Dr. Carrie Klypchak, who has been an integral part of this process. Her vast patience, seemingly endless library, and constant inspiration has continually encouraged me to explore this beautiful art. Thank you for always reminding me that “I am enough.”

I must also thank Murray Parks, my first director, who put me on the stage thirteen years ago. Without his early encouragement, I might have never looked at theatre as more than an exciting game of dress-up.

I would also like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank my family for their support and encouragement as I run passionately after this dream called theatre. I owe a debt of gratitude to my mom for introducing me to this passion, though she may have instantly regretted her choice to bring an eight-year-old to a community theatre rehearsal, to my brother for sitting through endless performances and never complaining aloud, to my sister who still somehow thinks I am good at everything, and to my dad who never doubted me for a second. I would not be who I am today without your love and encouragement.

Finally, to my “theatre family” which I have learned to hold closer over the years: thank you for being my home away from home and inspiring me along the way.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Method ...... 3

Significance of the Study ...... 9

Outline of the Study ...... 10

2. LITERATURE REVIEW ...... 11

3. COMPOSING THE COLLISION: ANNE BOGART AND HER DEVISING TECHNIQUES ...... 26

4. ANALYZING THE COLLISION: DIRECTORIAL MONTAGE IN A RITE ...... 40

5. CONCLUSION ...... 63

Implications of the Study ...... 63

Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research ...... 71

The Broad Scope ...... 73

6. WORKS CITED ...... 74

7. VITA ...... 81

Chapter I

INTRODUCTION

From the development of the first films in the late 1880s, film has been influenced by the theatre. Despite dozens of one-reel documentary motion pictures at the inception of film technology, silent films began to exhibit a narrative structure borrowed from theatrical tradition when “as early as 1897, Georges Méliès filmed scenes from Parisian stage comedies; by 1900

Sarah Bernhardt was before cameras starring in short scenes from Hamlet [and] in America, theatre pieces were filmed by Adolph Zukor when he founded Famous Players” which would eventually be renamed Paramount Pictures (Brown xiii).

Many early filmmakers, such as D.W. Griffith (1875-1948) who is often referred to as

“the father of film technique,” (Simmon 2) came from theatre backgrounds. In his experimentation with various film techniques, though, Griffith was able to distinguish his cinematic work from the theatrical stage through the use of editing, multiple-location shooting, intercuts, close-ups and long-shots (17-18).

As technology developed, filmmakers further separated themselves from the theatre with the incorporation of advanced editing, producing special effects that the theatre could not.

Editing led to the use and refinement of the cinematic montage technique as described in depth by Soviet filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) as early as 1924, though his works were not translated into English until 1942. Not working in isolation, Eisenstein developed his theories of montage in response to the work of Russian contemporaries, most notably Lev Kuleshov (1899-1970) of the famed Kuleshov Workshop and his student Vsevolod

Pudovkin (1893-1953) and Dziga Vertov (1896-1954) who brought a form of montage to documentary-style filmmaking (Taylor 22). Across his multiple works, Eisenstein reviews,

2 critiques, and challenges the concepts of montage and filmmaking utilized by these and others working in film at the time in an effort to polish his own developing theories. At its most basic level, Eisenstein’s montage theory derives from the collision of two shots that are independent of one another (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader 94). In film, then, this collision is manipulated by a film director and editor as the two piece together the independent shots to create something new, or, as Eisenstein categorizes this interaction, “dynamic” (94).

Film theorist Susan Sontag argues:

The history of cinema is often treated as the history of its emancipation from

theatrical models. First of all from theatrical “frontality” (the unmoving camera

reproducing the situation of the spectator of a play fixed in his seat), then from

theatrical acting (gestures needlessly stylized, exaggerated-needlessly, because

now the actor could be seen “close up”), then from theatrical furnishings

(unnecessary "distancing" of the audience's emotions, disregarding the

opportunity to immerse the audience in reality). Movies are regarded as

advancing from theatrical stasis to cinematic fluidity. (24)

This view puts the two mediums at odds, suggesting that film and theatre must separate in order to distinguish one form from the other. However, as film has become a more prevalent medium in contemporary society, the theatre “has also been influenced and changed by cinema . . . consciously or not” (Ebrahimian 2-3). This reversal of roles breaks the barrier of distinction in order to allow for a sort of ongoing conversation as each form influences the other.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the exchange between film and theatre and to reveal the ways in which film techniques, particularly film montage, influence the contemporary

3 stage. Specifically, I interrogate the connection between directorial montage in film and theatre as present in contemporary, devised theatrical work.

As defined by Alison Oddey in Devising Theatre, “a devised theatre product is work that has emerged from and been generated by a group of people working in collaboration” (1). In this way, devised theatre, as an alternative theatrical form, branches from the traditional theatrical process which focuses on a strict interpretation of an established, written script. Instead, devised theatre relies on “the collective creation of [original] art (not the single vision of the playwright)”

– thereby switching the emphasis from the playwright to the collaborative creative artist (4).

Just as montage at its most basic level refers to the collision of images (Eisenstein, The

Eisenstein Reader 87), so too does the process of devising theatre, which “is about the fragmentary experience of understanding ourselves, our culture, and the world we inhabit . . . the process reflects a multivision made up of each group member’s individual perception of the world as perceived in a series of images, then interpreted and defined as a product” (Oddey 1).

Montage, though famously theorized as a film technique by Eisenstein, then, in its methods of collision, can be markedly linked to the theatrical stage via devised theatre. This connection leads to the primary research question of this thesis: “How do Eisenstein’s concepts of montage manifest in devised theatrical productions?”

Method

In the current qualitative study, I have gathered data to contribute answers to my primary research question by conducting a case study, or as defined by researcher Robert K. Yin, an

“empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context”

(13). My case study explores the devising processes and resulting directorial montage in the work of famed, contemporary theatre director, Anne Bogart (1951- ). Bogart claims that a

4 historical exploration of American culture, such as that of “silent film,” remains germane in her work (A Director Prepares 14). Thus, I examine the directorial montage exemplified in her devised work as framed by Eisenstein’s cinematic montage theories. I provide an overview of

Bogart’s devising processes and then analyze her use of directorial montage onstage via my direct observation of her most recently devised production, A Rite.

Bogart has garnered much critical acclaim for directorial accomplishment. She has received numerous awards and honors, including two Obie Awards®, the New York Dance and

Performance (Bessie) Award®, the Kellogg Award® from Bard College, the Association for

Theatre in Higher Education Achievement in Professional Theater Award®, a Guggenheim

Fellowship®, and has served on the National Endowment for the Arts® Overview Committee and the Fulbright® Committee (“Anne Bogart”). The development of the physical Viewpoints, a rigorous system of actor training composed of exercises which allow performers to explore and manipulate both time and space, has also garnered much attention for Bogart. Her methods have become incredibly popular amongst contemporary theatre groups worldwide. As a result of her achievements, Bogart’s working processes and productions over the course of her career prove highly influential on the contemporary theatrical community at large, thereby providing a sound justification for her work forming the basis for the current case study.

Bogart’s theatrical directing path began with the deconstruction of classic theatre texts and the exploration of devised theatrical works, collaboratively authored by groups in conjunction with the director utilizing techniques of directorial montage. Then, this was succeeded by an almost exclusive pairing of Bogart with playwrights, such as Charles Mee,

Jocelyn Clarke, and operatic composer Deborah Drattell, whose pieces were written to be explored by the director and her company, the Saratoga International Theater Institute (SITI)

Company; Mee, Clarke, and Drattell, each collaborated on the work with Bogart and the SITI

Company throughout the writing process (Bogart, “American Theatre”). At present, Bogart seems to be making a move back to devised works with SITI (“History”).

Bogart’s most recent directorial venture into devised theatre is displayed in the collaborative work, A Rite, which premiered at the Carolina Performing Arts Center in January of 2013. In keeping with Bogart’s focus on exploration through collaboration, she and the members of SITI collaborated with Bill T. Jones and the Arnie Zane Dance Company to explore

Igor Stravinsky’s (1882-1971) 1913 musical composition, The Rite of Spring (“A Rite”).

Through a series of cross-country meetings over a nine month time period, the two companies met in a series of intensive workshop-style collaboration sessions to create a new interpretation of Stravinsky’s score via the use of song, dance, text, and performance. The new work was inspired by a series of texts, including Jonah Lehrer’s book, Proust Was a Neuroscientist (2007);

“a collection of texts from returning soldiers from World War I; the theoretical physics of string theorist Brian Greene; and the words of Dr. [Severine] Neff,” a Eugene Falk Distinguished

Professor of Music from the University of North Carolina who advised the performers on the dramaturgical history of Stravinsky’s piece (Robin).

The production ultimately asks the following question: “How do we create a rite for our modern world, informed by the legacy of the original but containing the complexities and paradoxes of our own times?” (Burke). Regarded by New York Times reviewer Alastair

Macaulay as “a serious, intricate, multidirectional centennial tribute to a work of art whose spell it deepens,” A Rite is presented with Stravinsky’s score played from different recordings. These recordings—one of which has a contemporary, clean sound, a second offers an old, scratchy effect, and another presents a jazz reinterpretation of Stravinsky’s classic score—are layered

6 over one another or played individually, with performers also singing vocalized scores composed by independent musicians Timothy Hambourger and Yayoi Ikawa (“A Rite”). While dancers perform to the various recordings, a woman enters to teach the audience about the history of

Stravinsky’s work. This narrator enters in and out of the various vignette-style stories that unfold, half in dance and half in words (Macaulay).

In order to analyze the use of directorial montage in A Rite, I attended two live performances of the production at the end of January 2014 at the University of Richmond,

Virginia. In seeing the production on two separate occasions, I viewed and heard the evident directorial montage from two different perspectives—based purely on seating in the audience.

From the direct observation of these performances, I collected and housed my data in a fieldwork notebook (McGregor).

My analysis of the directorial montage in A Rite is framed by the findings of Sergei

Eisenstein’s montage theory. Eisenstein’s theoretical approach to cinematic montage came as a direct result of the work of his contemporaries, such as Kuleshov, Pudovkin, Vertov, and other filmmakers applying montage techniques at this time. This cinematic device was heralded by the government as an example of “genuine Soviet art [which] demanded the destruction of traditional art forms” (Bordwell 13). The prevalence of the technique at this time was also due to its practicality given a post-World War I shortage of silver nitrate, a necessary component used to make film stock (9). Each aforementioned filmmaker/theorist, like Eisenstein, “assumed that filmic meaning is built out of an assemblage of shots which creates a new synthesis, an overall meaning that lies not within each part but in the very fact of juxtaposition” (9). Yet, the filmmakers did not agree on a singular, fixed aesthetic, but instead sought to refine their own methods of cinematic collision in efforts to polish the art of film montage.

In the theatrical world, however, Eisenstein’s montage theory is repeatedly cited as the primary influence in the creation of directorial montage on the dramatic stage. Eisenstein, who originally found his roots in theatre as a scenic designer and stage director, experimented with the theory of montage on the stage, which he termed “montage of attractions” (The Eisenstein

Reader 36). However, the director made a permanent transition to film, a medium which he termed “the art of juxtapositions,” which was then incapable of successfully meeting his desired standard of montage (36). Because theatre was unable to fully achieve the montage he sought, he began working in film in order to successfully achieve montage as his theories continued to expand. The core tenets of Eisenstein’s montage theory were first published in English as essay compilations found in Film Form (1942) and The Film Sense (1949), within which Eisenstein discusses the definitions, implications, and possibilities for the montage technique in film. In the current study, I cross-apply these techniques to Bogart’s use of directorial montage in her contemporary devised theatrical work to explore theatre’s ability to achieve Eisenstein’s concepts of montage.

Eisenstein classifies the techniques of visual montage into five categories: metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual (The Eisenstein Reader 116-123). The first and most basic type of montage, metric montage, refers to the conjoining of shots based solely on their

“absolute length” in a formulaic pattern; tension can be thus created for an audience if the formula is sped up (116). A variation of this form can be found in rhythmic montage in which the length of shots within a montage sequence is determined by content so that the movement

“either of an object within the scope of the shot or of the eye along the guiding lines of an immobile object” determines the rhythm of a specific montage sequence (118). Tonal montage refers to the overall emotional tone or resonance of a shot; this resonance is enhanced by the

“vibrations” created by conflicting cinematic elements, such as focus, angle, light, etc., within the frame and how these conflicts promote an emotional response from an audience (Eisenstein,

The Eisenstein Reader 118). These three forms are combined to form overtonal montage. This type of montage seeks to merge metric rhythm, movement, and audience-induced emotional response in order to spark “a direct physiological sensation” (120). Unlike tonal montage which seeks to incite a singular dominant emotional reaction, overtonal montage sequences will barrage audiences with a range of emotions elicited from the collision of multiple elements within the shot sequence (121). Finally, Eisenstein’s intellectual montage seeks to incite more than an emotional reaction from an audience, but an intellectual response in what he sees as the highest form of montage (123).

Aside from the above described forms of visual montage, Eisenstein also theorizes about the importance of audiovisual or vertical montage: “[t]he superimposition of the audiotrack onto the visual track” becomes the basic governing principle of vertical montage (Ebrahimian 81).

With vertical montage, often in the form of synchronized film scores, the emotional and intellectual responses garnered via the visual methods of montage are thereby significantly intensified through the addition of the aural element (81).

Although in definition of his theories, Eisenstein refers to montage solely in relation to its use in cinema, these techniques are put into practice, sometimes inadvertently, on the stage as well. Through a close examination of the devised production A Rite, I analyze the various levels of directorial montage as exemplified in the show. By breaking down the narrative structure of A

Rite into measurable moments of collision, the most basic elements of Eisenstein’s montage, I determine what forms of montage are found within the production. In this way, I am able to

9 more closely examine the relationship of film and devised theatre through the scope of directorial montage.

Significance of the Study

Published literature does not currently exist that provides an in-depth analysis of the full intricacies of cinematic montage practices in contemporary devised work for the stage. As reviewed in the second chapter of this thesis, literature does exist that engages the overarching concept of directorial montage for the stage, which still proves relevant in situating my study.

However, since no published material directly analyzes the multiple facets of Eisenstein’s montage theory as they are applied in contemporary devised work, this thesis provides important information that is missing from the current body of scholarly literature by offering a detailed analysis of evident directorial montage in production. In illuminating in-depth information about the intricacies of directorial montage in devised theatre, I add to the spectrum of scholarship for the disciplines of both theatre and film, thereby enhancing understanding of artistic practices.

The current case study focuses on the collaborative devised theatrical work of Anne

Bogart, who, due to her international and critical acclaim, maintains a wide sphere of influence.

Nothing has been published to date analyzing Eisenstein’s concept of montage in Bogart’s work.

Given that her work is so revered, well-known, and influential, an analysis of her use of directorial montage offers understanding of potential practices in the theatrical community at large.

In this study, I acknowledge, rather than ignore, that film and theatre are “in dialogue and in active exchange with one another” (Ebrahimian 3). Through this exploration of directorial montage, I offer insights into the relationship between cinematic techniques and the

10 contemporary experimental theatre and provide a platform for further scholarly research focusing on this topic.

Outline of the Study

In Chapter One of this thesis, I have introduced the study, stated my primary research question, described my method, and outlined the significance of the study. In the second chapter, I review the relevant, published literature regarding the concept of directorial montage in theatre in order to situate the current study. In Chapter Three, I offer an introduction to Anne

Bogart and explore the intricacies found in her working techniques and devising process. The fourth chapter provides an analysis of directorial montage in Bogart’s most recently devised production, A Rite. In the Conclusion, I summarize and synthesize my major findings and offer suggestions for future research based on the limitations of the study.

Chapter 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Although there have been no scholarly publications that fully apply the intricacies of

Sergei Eisenstein’s montage theory to the theatrical stage, the concept of directorial montage is not uncommon in theatre scholarship. Directorial montage refers to the practice of a theatre director who selects and organizes moments of collision to occur on the stage which can thereby produce an alternate meaning than that which would be found in the individual moments alone.

In order to situate the current study within the realm of published literature, in this chapter, I review major, representative, scholarly publications that reflect important ideas regarding directorial montage in theatrical performance.

Anne Bogart’s own writings cover an array of theatre topics from a director’s point of view that prove relevant under the definition of directorial montage. Bogart’s most recently published work, What’s the Story?: Essays about Art, Theater and Storytelling, contains a compilation of essays written by the director which seeks to explore the foundations of storytelling in theatre. In this text, Bogart highlights the importance of collaboration in the developmental process of dynamic theatrical work which ultimately serves to communicate a story to an audience. Bogart claims that a “successful” production occurs when “moments that have been carefully selected, set and artfully arranged nevertheless feel natural, full of life and, to an audience, spontaneous” (28). In this way, Bogart emphasizes her implementation of directorial montage to construct a stage narrative.

The concepts of physical Viewpoints and Composition are utilized by Bogart to generate material from which she can thereby create directorial montage. The physical Viewpoints refer to a form of actor training which serves as a technique for training performers to explore and

12 create movement on the stage. Composition is a collaborative, improvisation-based method of creating original material and is often used in conjunction with the physical Viewpoints. The

Viewpoints Book by Anne Bogart and Tina Landau, is the definitive published work about

Viewpoints and Composition to date. This book gives a history of Bogart’s development of the

Viewpoints and Composition, provides exercises, and serves as a handbook for teaching and implementing the techniques. As Bogart pieces together the work generated through her incorporation of Viewpoints and Composition, she thereby follows the parameters of directorial montage.

A Director Prepares: Seven Essays on Art and Theatre is a collection of essays written by Bogart examining the challenges of creating theatre. In these essays, she discusses how directors can incorporate the Viewpoints throughout the process of developing a production.

And Then You Act: Making Art in an Unpredictable World, another collection of essays written by Bogart, contains additional advice regarding the creation of theatre as an art form and highlights Bogart’s incorporation of Viewpoints and Composition in her work.

Sergei Eisenstein begins his discussion of directorial montage in the 1923 article “The

Montage of Attractions,” written before his transition from a professional focus on theatre to that of film. In this piece, Eisenstein introduces the concept of the “montage of attractions . . .

[which] subjects the audience to emotional or psychological influence, verified by experience and mathematically calculated to produce specific emotional shocks in the spectator” (The

Eisenstein Reader 30). Through the categorization of stage action into measurable units of

“attraction,” Eisenstein posits that the theatrical event can be formulaically calculated to garner a specific response from the audience. He cites cinema as an educational source from which stage

13 directors should become educated in the practice of montage and argues that the perfection of montage on the dramatic stage is the desired future of the theatre (31).

Playwright Sergei Tret’iakov further corroborates Eisenstein’s above described concepts in his 1924 article “The Theatre of Attractions.” Tret’iakov, who worked alongside Eisenstein in the First Worker’s Theatre of the Moscow Proletkul’t, specifically analyzes the use of the montage of attractions in Eisenstein’s theatrical production of Tret’iakov’s scripted works

Gasmasks (1923) and Are You Listening, Moscow? (1924). Each production, Tret’iakov claims, utilized a juxtaposition of attractions, or moments of emotion-inducing action, which were deconstructed by the director and reconstructed by the actors during performance “on the basis of calculation of the emotional intensity, tempo, and movement of the actor” (26). Tret’iakov clarifies that with an aim to place subconscious pressures on the audience through the juxtaposition of stage images, the theatre of attractions follows a pattern of deconstruction/reconstruction in order to convey an understood message to its viewers (27).

Erika Fischer-Lichte also discusses Eisenstein’s work with the montage of attractions in

“The Avant-Garde and the Semiotics of the Antitextual Gesture,” as published in Contours of the

Theatrical Avant-Garde: Performance and Textuality. In this chapter, Fischer-Lichte provides in great detail an overview of Eisenstein’s use of montage of attractions, his earliest and most basic form of montage theory, in the 1922 production of Alexander Ostrovsky’s The Wise Man.

She claims that the director took great liberties with Ostrovsky’s play, utilizing only twenty-five percent of the original scripted material, though even that was not presented in linear order as written by the playwright. Instead, Eisenstein applied his early theory of montage of attractions to this production and deconstructed the script in such a way that multiple storylines often simultaneously existed onstage, pulling audience focus in multiple directions. In this way, “the

14 text of Ostrovsky’s drama was . . . completely dissected; individual sections were fused with other elements—other texts, movements, objects, film clips, music—and thus became components of an event” (88). Fischer-Lichte ultimately claims that although Eisenstein worked from a scripted text, the director did not rely on this material as the primary source of his production; instead, he embedded new meaning in the work through the contrast of textual elements (89-90).

In his 2004 book, The Cinematic Theater, stage director and scholar Babak A.

Ebrahimian explores the possible applications of certain aspects of montage theory to the theatrical stage as he posits throughout the text that a “Cinematic Theatre” is the future of theatre arts. Although he discusses the history of montage at length, his primary focus in the application of these principles refers to the utilization of vertical montage on the stage. As noted by

Ebrahimian, vertical montage, or the production’s sound track, “includes the sounds in the scene and the music, as well as the amplified, or prerecorded spoken text” to create a sort of “staged film” (109).

Famed director, playwright, and theorist, Bertolt Brecht, utilized Eisenstein’s concepts of montage in the formation of his Epic Theatre, as first practiced in the 1920s. As Brecht describes it, his Epic Theatre sought to radically transform the theatre from realistic, emotion- based drama to that which appealed more to the spectator’s reason (“The Epic Theatre and Its

Difficulties” 23). Walter Benjamin, a German literary critic and personal friend of Brecht, claims in his 1998 text, Understanding Brecht, that Epic Theatre “proceeds by fits and starts, in a manner comparable to the images on a film strip” (21). Aware of the formulaic process involved in creating film montage, Brecht sought to utilize the same progression in his theatre. In “The

Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre,” Brecht contrasts Epic Theatre to the more common

15 dramatic theatre by noting Epic Theatre’s use of montage with a plot that develops in “jumps” and “curves,” as opposed to linear growth (37). Brecht further clarifies that scenes which can stand alone are woven together in Epic Theatre, rather than developing in the traditional sense of building upon one another. Brecht’s scenes, often presented out of sequential order, were structured in a purposeful manner to create new meaning based on their juxtaposition (37). In

“Montage in Brecht,” Roswitha Mueller discusses Brecht’s theoretical and practical use of montage. Mueller claims that Brecht utilized montage as an act of total composition, stating that

“its emphasis on how individual episodes are joined . . . represents the heart of the play” (477).

The theories of French director and theorist Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty suggest a theatre that creates meaning beyond the scope of text. Although first written in the late 1930s,

Artaud’s theoretical essays were not translated to English from the original German until the late

1950s. In his first manifesto, “The Theatre of Cruelty” as published in a compilation of his written works entitled The Theatre and Its Double, Artaud defines his form of theatre which seeks to assault the senses of the audience in order to allow them to experience unknown subconscious emotions. In this manifesto, Artaud claims that “language cannot be defined except by its possibilities for dynamic expression in space. . . . And what the theater can still take over from speech are its possibilities for extension beyond words, for development in space, for dissociative and vibratory action upon the sensibility” (63). Words alone, he posits, cannot create new meaning. Instead, Artaud claims that,

the visual language of objects, movements, attitudes, and gestures. . . . [forms] a

kind of alphabet out of these signs. Once aware of this language in space,

language of sounds, cries, lights, onomatopoeia, the theater must organize it into

veritable hieroglyphs, with the help of characters and objects, and make use of

their symbolism and interconnections in relation to all organs and on all

levels. (63)

Therefore, with a language created by movement and image, for Artaud, meaning was conveyed through a similar theoretical perspective in this regard as Brecht’s use of montage on the stage.

The manipulation of language to create powerful image and directorial montage can also be found in the work of theatre director and theorist, Jerzy Grotowski. Richard Schechner and

Lisa Wolford, editors of The Grotowski Sourcebook, have compiled relevant documents written by Grotowski and others describing Grotowski’s theories, productions, and methods. Taken as a whole, The Grotowski Sourcebook offers detailed information about the evolution of many elements of Grotowski’s theories and practices, including that of directorial montage, by highlighting his five phases of performance work: Theatre of Productions (1959-1969),

Paratheatre (1969-1978), Theatre of Sources (1976-1982), Objective Drama (1983-1986), and

Art as Vehicle (1986-1999).

During the Theatre of Productions phase of Grotowski’s work, the director developed a detailed process of psychophysical acting and creation for the performers of his company; he also began working with textual montage for production (Schechner, The Grotowski Sourcebook

“Introduction” 24-25). Schechner explains that Grotowski’s work with textual montage “took various literary or dramatic texts as material . . . that taken together lead the spectator to certain themes that are intangible only in the whole sequence, not in any parts experienced separately”

(25). This textual montage included the piecing together of text fragments, often from various sources, regardless of the playwright’s prescribed linear timeframe, to create a new work. As

Schechner further clarifies, the physicality of the performers also collided and meshed with these texts in dynamic ways during production.

Paratheatre, Grotowski’s second phase of work, focused on “the direct interactions between members of . . . [his] Laboratory Theatre and former spectators, now participants”

(Schechner, The Grotowski Sourcebook “Introduction to Part II” 205). As Paratheatre evolved,

Grotowski sought to eliminate cultural boundaries between performers and spectators by the absorption of influences from the audience-participants in an attempt to uncover the abiding sources of performance as determined by cultural roots. This led to the incorporation of Sufi dancing, as well as “song and chanting [which] augmented the movements” of the performers

(206). Growing from Paratheatre, Grotowski’s Theatre of Sources sought a deeper research into the rituals and performance techniques of various cultures. The incorporation of this research was aimed at growing and changing the performers and thereby awakening impulse (Grotowski,

“Theatre of Sources” 266). Grotowski then formulated his Objective Drama which incorporated a variety of cultural techniques, incorporating “movement, voice, rhythm, sound, [and] use of space,” in a single showing (Osinski 384). In his final phase of work, Art as Vehicle, Grotowski sought to further uncover the separation between ritual and performance via the incorporation of traditional ritual songs and actions. As Osinski notes, in this phase which is the least recognizably performative, the montage takes place, not in the mind of a spectator, but “in the minds of the doers” (390).

The textual montage of Theatre of Productions was combined with Grotowski’s ever- evolving methods of physical training based in the methodology of Constantin Stanislavski,

Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Vsevelod Meyerhold, and Alexander Tairov in his Polish Laboratory

Theatre to create directorial montage. An important element in Grotowski’s direction of a production focused on the performers’ utilization of “signs” and led to the creation of directorial montage, as described in Grotowski’s most recognized writing, “Towards a Poor Theatre” (29).

In this text, Grotowski, claims that these signs “demonstrate what is behind the mask of common vision: the dialectics of human behavior. . . . A sign, not a common gesture, is the elementary integer of expression for us” (29). The performers were directed toward an instinctual method of acting via eliminating socialized and otherwise forced behaviors in favor of incorporating these signs. Of this process, Schechner explains that Grotowski’s performers had to become “the actual bodies of the montage, the makers of the images, gestures, and sounds” that would collide to create something new on the stage through the use of signs and textual montage

(“Introduction” 25).

Using similar techniques to Grotowski, Eugenio Barba, Italian theorist, director, and founder of Denmark’s famed Odin Teatret, met and began collaborating with Grotowski in

Poland in 1961; his writing has been heavily influenced by this interaction and highlight perspectives on montage. Notably, Barba’s book, A Dictionary of Theatre Anthropology: The

Secret Art of the Performer, connects Eisenstein’s montage theories to the stage by dividing the theatrical development process into two separate but collaborative groupings: “the performer’s montage” and “the director’s montage” (160). As Barba explains, the performer’s montage relies on a system that teaches the actor to codify each potential movement of the body in order to piece separate movements together to create a desired effect. As further articulated by Barba, his concept of the director’s montage relies on a theatrical director weaving “the actions of several performers into a succession in which one action seems to answer another, or into a simultaneous assembling in which the meanings of both actions derive directly from the fact of their being co-present” (160).

The work and theories of Brecht, Artaud, Grotowski, and Barba are often attributed as influential to the Western avant-garde theatre movement of the 1960s and 1970s via a focus on

19 the power of image in theatrical performance. As well, as discussed in Richard Schechner’s book Environmental Theater, Grotowski and Barba often worked in environmental or site- specific experimental theatre, which influenced their choices for directorial montage and inspired the efforts of many other theatrical artists during this time period (25).

In “Text/Pre-Text/Pretext,” Christopher Innes narrates the evolution of movement away from traditionally constructed stage texts and toward enhanced montage during the performance work of the avant-garde theatre movement of the 1960s and 1970s in great detail. The emphasis on image, according to Innes, ushered in this physical theatre movement as notably exhibited by

The Living Theatre (1947-2013) originally directed by Julian Beck and Judith Malina, The Open

Theatre (1963-1973) led by director Joseph Chaiken, and The Performance Group (1967-1975) led by Richard Schechner, among other performance companies during the time. This experimental theatre movement often utilized text-based works, but reframed them by dispensing

“with individualized characters and standard plot structure” (62). Instead, the scripts were often broken down and pieced back together in an alternate order primarily upon instruction of the company director. Though these texts remained important to the production, “the dominant element of these productions became the gestures and movements of the actors and . . . the rhythms of the performance. Although still containing texts, these productions were already in essence physical theatre, with the core meaning carried by the mise-en-scène” (62). Innes uses specific examples of original productions loosely based on scripted texts. In these examples, he describes how the fragmentary text is layered with movement to create new meaning.

In Environmental Theater, Schechner further describes his work with The Performance

Group and his own approaches to site-specific performance. The creative process often utilized in the creation of site-specific work as exemplified by Schechner fulfills the definition of

20 directorial montage as it applies to both the physical and textual. Throughout the book,

Schechner articulates the collaborative process utilized by the members of The Performance

Group as applied to both scripted and devised original creations.

As the performers of The Performance Group assumed a more active developmental role in the creative process, Schechner served as both facilitator and inspirational leader to the company. In Environmental Theatre, he provides examples of structure for his working approach through his documentation of “actograms;” these sketches map his intended linkage and collision of both physicality and thematic ideas for clarification during the creative process

(287-288). Schechner also describes mise-en-scène meetings that he coordinated with the casts and crews, during which time the participants offered ideas, suggestions, and questions about the devised production’s thematic or physical content. These lengthy meetings provided means to navigate the chaos of ideas so that “things usually suppressed or translated directly into physicalizations during rehearsal . . . [were] coming out verbally” (304). Schechner then notates the collisions in the form of opposing conflicts. Schechner claims that this leads to the layering on of the performer’s actions, which are often occurring simultaneously in opposition to one another, and may even differ in sequential order from night-to-night (308). Using textual montage similar to that found in Grotowski’s works, Schechner layered texts from multiple sources to create performances during his work with The Performance Group; he explains his belief that “as the performer refines, distorts, condenses, and selects from his life experiences, so fragments from earlier dramas can be worked into the play at hand” (292).

Schechner further explains his use of textual montage in a 2000 interview, claiming: “I want to interrogate the texts and make them signify in ways they haven’t previously. . . . But for the most part, I’ve honored the texts of the plays I’ve directed. But I have not honored the scenic

21 or acting intentions of the authors” (“An Interview” 210). Therefore, through the use of the selective process of directorial montage, Schechner claims that the “avant-garde director is an author” (209).

Directorial montage also proves significant in the work and writings of British stage/film director and theorist, Peter Brook. As a director of opera, Shakespeare, devised, and multilingual works, Brook incorporates a measure of independence from words by focusing on the power of physicality onstage. Among Brook’s many writings offering his theories regarding performance, two prove most relevant in engaging the concept of directorial montage. In his canonical 1968 book, The Empty Space, he describes four modes of theatre: “a Deadly Theatre, a Holy Theatre, a Rough Theatre and an Immediate Theatre” (9). Throughout the text, Brook defines each of these four types of theatre, the Deadly Theatre: the oft-criticized commercial theatre; the Holy

Theatre: a ritualistic theatre which seeks to reveal the “sacred”; the Rough Theatre: which explores and antagonizes societal values and is fed by passionate emotions; and the Immediate

Theatre: a combination of Holy and Rough Theatre that attempts to unearth human truths. As he defines each form of theatre, Brook examines, challenges, and praises various theatre directors working in these different types of theatre. As well, in The Empty Space Brook claims that language is made up of “words issuing as sounds from people’s mouths, with pitch, pause, rhythm and gesture as part of their meaning. A word does not start as a word—it is an end product which begins as an impulse, stimulated by an attitude and behaviour which dictate the need for expression” (11-12). Physicality, therefore, is the ultimate vehicle for communication, rather than language.

Brook’s 1995 text, The Open Door: Thoughts on Acting and Theatre, provides more updated insights into the process and philosophies by which he creates theatre. The Open Door

22 describes Brook’s utilization of textual montage in his piecing together of scripted material to present a new vision of a well-known text. Additionally, in serving as director of the

International Centre of Theatre Research at the Bouffes du Nord Theatre in Paris from 1970 to

2008, Brook explains that in training his actors he sought to constantly refine a measure of sensitivity, meaning “that the actor . . . [was] at all times in contact with his entire body” (23).

According to Brook, this sensitivity allows a performer to convey the most meaning by the utilization of precision through physical movement on the stage (27).

The Open Door also provides insight into Brook’s creation process, which focuses on physicality before language. As Brook clarifies, when approaching a devised, scripted, or re- worked classic, he always asks actors to explore the material physically—often for several days—before any language analysis takes place (130). By beginning with improvisatory physical exploration, Brook fosters onstage communication without words which will further lead to directorial montage (77). Brook explains that he begins with an improvisational phase of play “without preconceptions” among the actors, which leads to a second phase of work and experimentation based on the first level of play, and continues with a third phase “of rational analysis, which can bring about a clarification of what one has just done” (90). In this way,

Brook directs a piecing together of movement that is later finalized with words for performance.

Throughout this process, Brook claims that “the role of the director is to keep track of what is being explored and for what purpose . . . for it produces a vast amount of raw material out of which the final shapes can be drawn” (131). Brook utilizes the material generated during the rehearsal period in order to create a layering of both movement and language that leads to a finalized performance.

French director Ariane Mnouchkine also utilizes powerful directorial montage in her theatrical works. In 1959, she organized l'Association Théâtrale des Etudiants Parisiens that evolved into her company, Théâtre du Soleil, in 1964; the company still currently produces works in France. While little has been published in English regarding the intricacies of

Mnouchkine’s work, two major texts highlight important ideas regarding her manipulations of directorial montage: David Williams’ edited text, Collaborative Theatre: The Théâtre du Soleil

Sourcebook, offers a collection of insightful interviews and essays about the director and her company; and Adrian Kiernander’s Ariane Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil further illuminates

Mnouchkine’s working practices with her company which proves important in her directorial realizations.

In “The Search for Language,” included in Collaborative Theatre, Mnouchkine describes her extensive rehearsal periods which often dedicate months, or even years, to preparation and exploration of a piece. Working from both scripted and original texts, Mnouchkine notes that she shifts focus away from language in the early phases of the process. In discussing her approach to developing the 1969-70 devised piece, Les Clowns, as an example, she claims that in the beginning, “nothing existed: nothing, that is, except for the creativity of the actors” (18).

Whether utilizing a script or not, Mnouchkine clarifies that she begins all of her rehearsals with a blank slate upon which the performers can build.

In “The Space of Tragedy,” also included in Collaborative Theatre, Mnouchkine further elaborates on the implementation of her physically-based techniques when working with an established text. This approach allows for the physical realm to be explored and created early in the work before the words are layered onto the piece. As Mnouchkine selects, edits, and re-

24 frames performance units from these physically-based improvisatory works via her company’s creative process, she ultimately creates resulting directorial montage.

Perhaps one of the best-known traits of Mnouchkine’s works relies on her utilization of multi-point focal staging. As Victoria Ness Kirby notes in Collaborative Theatre’s “1789 at the

Cartoucherie,” often, Mnouchkine’s productions manipulate the use of multiple, small stage spaces, around which the audience is carefully seated. The performance as a whole takes place across the separate stages, sometimes with multiple scenes unfolding in unison (7-8). In this way, the montage occurs in multiple locations, thereby forcing the audience to focus on one point or another and thereby derive meaning from the juxtaposition of the perceived staging of the scenes.

Mnouchkine also utilizes vertical montage in the creation of her productions as discussed in her use of music throughout the Williams text. Her multinational company has collaborated with musician-composer Jean-Jacques Lemêtre since 1979 (226). In a separate, 2012 interview with the Andrew Dickson, Mnouchkine further explains that Lemêtre begins writing his musical score for a Théâtre du Soleil production as the performers begin rehearsing on their very first day of a new project. As a result, even when working with a scripted text, the music develops, reinforces, and collides appropriately with the production from the beginning stages of the process.

In Ariane Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil, Kiernander additionally describes the use of music in Mnouchkine’s productions, which also incorporates song or chanted lyrics. The music becomes both a complement and a juxtaposition to the events that unfold on

Mnouchkine’s stage, thereby creating new meaning via the use of vertical montage in production

(137). In the chapter “Collective Creation,” Kiernander also succinctly and tellingly summarizes

Mnouchkine’s overall approach to directing: “to select from and order this enormous amount of material to make a performance piece” (67).

The process of directorial montage and its relationship to the theatre spectator is analyzed in Italian theatre scholar Giulia Ceriani’s article “Oversights: Notes on Theatrical Montage.”

Here, she makes the claim that due to the distance created by the spectator-performer relationship as determined simply by seating within the audience, theatre observers are freer to make interpretations based on points of view than film audiences who are restricted to only the camera’s scope (265). Directorial (or theatrical) montage is defined in Ceriani’s text as

“manipulation which concerns the combination of different substances of expression implied. . . both in staging and in the logic of scene linkage that involves the overall time of the performance” (265). In this discussion of directorial montage, the audience member, or “actant,” subconsciously determines the montage by decoding the series of images (266). Directors and performers, then, can plot the production as if on “a grid which is both topological and visual, and concerns the realized focalizations, transferences, and figurativizations of the actant . . .

[then the audience] can reconstruct, at the level of content, the type of path followed” (266). In this way, the creation of the directorial montage is ultimately dependent on the deconstruction of stage elements made by the director and performers and the subsequent reconstruction of such elements by the actant observers.

As the published literature clearly indicates, the concept of directorial montage in theatre remains important to the work of many artists and theorists. Thus, a clear and significant scholarly space proves evident for my complementing discussion of Bogart’s devising processes and analysis of her realized directorial montage onstage.

Chapter 3

COMPOSING THE COLLISION: ANNE BOGART AND HER DEVISING TECHNIQUES

Anne Bogart’s journey of artistic development plays a significant role in her current directorial work. As well, her working practices with the members of her company, the Saratoga

International Theater Institute (SITI) Company, fuel her development of directorial montage onstage. In order to appropriately contextualize Bogart’s use of directorial montage, in this chapter, I provide a brief overview of her theatrical history and discuss the intricacies of her specific devising approach, “Composition;” ultimately, from the Composition process, Bogart is able to produce material with actors from which she creates moments of directorial montage in production.

Born to a Navy family that travelled throughout most of her childhood, Bogart felt that from school-to-school, theatre was her only constant and has since devoted her life to the art form. With a Bachelor of Arts from Bard College and a Master of Arts from New York

University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Bogart began her professional directing career in New

York City by working with whatever actors she could find and performing in found spaces

(Bogart, “American Theatre”). Due to a lack of physical and financial resources, Bogart was forced to be resourceful in order to pursue her artistic passions. Though she directed some traditionally scripted works, many of her early directing credits derive from original adaptations or devised pieces (Lampe 16-17). The young director often “worked site specifically . . .

[staging] productions in shop windows, rooftops, construction sites, basements, a Romanian meeting hall, discos, clubs, a detective agency, an abandoned schoolhouse and many other places ripe for invasion” (Bogart, A Director Prepares 11). Her explorations in environmental and site- specific theatrical work forced her creativity in staging and furthered cemented her commitment

27 to non-traditional theatrical work (Cummings 51-52). Bogart’s work with directorial montage, which she has developed and refined throughout her career, proved evident even in her early productions.

In 1979, while teaching at the Experimental Theatre Wing at New York University’s

Tisch School of the Arts, Bogart met choreographer Mary Overlie. Overlie is credited as the inventor of the “Six Viewpoints” of dance, which were an articulation of the “basic elements out of which a dance is constructed” in order to explore improvisational movement (111). From

Overlie’s ideas, Bogart translated these Viewpoints into six—and later nine with the help of fellow director Tina Landau—physical Viewpoints for the theatre: spatial relationship, kinesthetic response, shape, gesture, repetition, architecture, tempo, duration, and topography.

Bogart’s Viewpoints are utilized as a “technique for (1) training performers; (2) building ensemble; and (3) creating movement for the stage” (Bogart and Landau 6-7). Later, Bogart would develop six vocal viewpoints as well: pitch, dynamic, acceleration, deceleration, silence, and timbre. As performance scholar Scott Cummings notes of the vocal Viewpoints, “though not yet as systematically taught as the physical Viewpoints, the mere fact of their enumeration reflect[s] the widening influence of Bogart’s methods” (112). Ultimately, Bogart’s techniques help a performer to reconsider how s/he acts by approaching the art from several different points of view; the various Viewpoints encourage actors to go beyond the typical, ultra-realistic acting processes that have permeated American acting for centuries (Bogart and Landau 16).

From 1979 to 1989, Bogart was afforded opportunities to experiment and further refine some of her working techniques with the Experimental Theatre Wing and during her travels— directing in Omaha, Houston, Paris, and San Diego, among others (Lampe 15). Also during this

28 time, she began to search for her own company, “with whom she could build a vocabulary and a set of relationships that would be used to create plays as a group” (Cummings 46).

After a “glorious, terrible” one-year stint as the Artistic Director for Trinity Repertory

Company during its 1989-1990 season, Bogart learned the difficult lesson that “you cannot take over someone else’s company. You have to start from scratch” (Bogart, A Director Prepares

16). Citing financial and creative differences, Bogart decided that she could no longer lead the

Trinity Repertory Company; Bogart sought more experimental work than Trinity was prepared to produce. Instead, Bogart realized the need to start fresh with a group of like-minded performers seeking goals that aligned with her own.

Famed Polish director and theorist, Jerzy Grotowski, whose creative processes and theories have been highly influential on Bogart’s work, claims that the utilization of a company is of the utmost importance in the creation of a performance. A company, Grotowski states,

“provide[s] the possibility of renewing artistic discoveries. In the work of a theatre group, a specific continuity is necessary” (“From the Theatre Company” 117). A theatre company is able to continue building on a set of skills with each production, learning and developing along the same plane so that a greater level of creative experimentation becomes possible.

Bogart often cites French director Ariane Mnouchkine as her exemplar for the formation of a company. About Mnouchkine, Bogart says: she is “really my model. . . . She’s a generation older than I am, a director of a company, and somebody I admire very much” (“American

Theatre”). Mnouchkine, the director of the famed French Théâtre du Soleil established in 1964, produces both scripted and devised works with her multinational company of more than seventy performers, designers, and technicians. Mnouchkine has won numerous awards, the most recent including the Goethe Medal® (2011), the International Ibsen Award® (2009), and the UNESCO

Picasso Medal® (2005). Mnouchkine and Théâtre du Soleil pull influences from many different theatrical forms gleaned from travels throughout Europe and Eastern countries such as India,

Indonesia, Korea, and others (Williams 224-225). Mnouchkine, a social and political activist, named her company after the sun, claiming that “Théâtre du Soleil is the dream of living, working, being happy and searching for beauty and for goodness” (Rockwell).

In a 1986 meeting between the two directors, Mnouchkine told Bogart: “don’t get me wrong, companies are difficult. People leave and break your heart and the hardships are constant, but what are you going to do without a company?’ (Bogart, A Director Prepares 15).

In keeping with Grotowski’s and Mnouchkine’s sentiments, Bogart further realized her own need for a company composed of a core group of actors with which she could expand and further refine her directing process (16-17).

In 1992, Bogart, with the help of Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki, founded the SITI

Company based in Saratoga Springs, New York (16-17). A primary component in Bogart’s successful application of directorial montage is her use of an established group of actors in SITI.

Viewpoints, as well as The Suzuki Method, a system of rigorous movement and balance-based actor training, prove the core of the physical and vocal instruction for performers at the SITI

Company. As well, SITI employs Bogart’s developed method of Composition for devising purposes (Cummings 125). Composition is likened to “making a rough draft, a way to generate raw material, test out creative impulses, and experiment with themes, characters, and situations, images, structures, pieces of text, and physical materials, any or all of which might contribute to the creation of a larger, more polished piece” (126). Beginning with Viewpoints exercises,

Compositions are formed from group improvisations until the performance units can be finalized and then rehearsed as a completed whole. Bogart claims:

Composition is a method for being in dialogue with other art forms as it borrows

from and reflects the other arts. In Composition work, we study and use the

principles from other disciplines translated for the stage . . . we’ll think about

film: “How do we stage a close-up? An establishing shot? A montage?” and

we’ll ask: “What is the equivalent in the theatre?” In applying Compositional

principles from other disciplines to the theatre, we push the envelope of theatrical

possibility and challenge ourselves to create new forms. (Bogart and Landau 13)

Bogart also describes SITI’s general “approach to rehearsal, whether in the creation of original work or classical plays, new plays, dance-theatre, or opera” as “Composition” (211). In fact, each of these types of performance can be found in Bogart’s directorial repertoire, and she and the SITI company travel both nationally and internationally to collaborate and perform with other artists for theatrical development on all types of pieces. Bogart claims that “all great art is created from a state of imbalance. . . . Rehearsals need to be a place where imbalance is encouraged, and the striving for harmony from a state of imbalance is what makes the heroic act of creation” (“American Theatre”). SITI’s work on a variety of performance types, combined with the practice of collaborating with other artists, creates a diversity and uncertainty in the company’s work, which, in turn, fosters exploration in the creation of new and impactful art.

Currently, only four of SITI’s ten performers have been with the company since its inception, though all but one have been members since the 1990s (“SITI Company Members”).

Several of the company’s performers were introduced to SITI after performing as members of

Tadashi Suzuki’s Suzuki Company of Toga. In this way, Bogart has been lucky to maintain a consistent, core group of performers with whom to collaborate and experiment with performance techniques in greater depth than if she was adding new primary performers for each production.

Bogart claims that “after 20 years with SITI Company, largely working with the same actors and designers. . . . we are increasingly able to collaborate with one another. The accumulation of sustained collective effort has multiplied the skills of the actors and increased their appetites to climb ever higher mountains” (What’s the Story 112).

When collaborating with new performers, the seasoned company members play a significant role in the training process and are often responsible for leading Viewpoints,

Composition, and Suzuki training exercises (Bogart, A Director Prepares 18). Over time,

Bogart’s SITI Company has polished its approach to theatrical training to include both the

Viewpoints and the Suzuki training to generate raw material through Composition.

Bogart’s Composition process stems from a tradition of experimental theatre and dance techniques. While an undergraduate at Bard College in the early 1970s, Bogart participated in a

“composition” course with postmodern dance instructor Aileen Passloff. This course taught

Passloff’s technique of composition which, broadly defined, focuses on “putting things together, putting one thing after another” and finding new forms to communicate meaning through performative dance (Cummings 126). The modern dance concept of composition is also attributed to Louis Horst, Martha Graham, and Merce Cuningham who influenced the work of

Passloff (304). These dance-performance pieces were used to tell expressionistic stories by drawing inspiration from dreams, photographs, and music, amongst other things One example of

Passloff’s composition assignments called the students to “make a piece out of two percussive or vibrating moves, one sustained, two lyric, one gesture, one still” (Lampe 19). From these dance methods which made use of the collision of opposing movements, Bogart began developing her own version of Composition while serving as an instructor at New York University’s

Experimental Theatre Wing in the early 1980s (Cummings 126). Yet, she has only been able to truly refine her approach to Composition with the like-minded company members of SITI.

Bogart views her Composition work as an extension of the training experience for the members of the SITI Company and its collaborators. Though improvisational at its core, the goal of a Composition is to draw from raw material in order to ultimately form a finalized piece

“that is repeatable, theatrical, communicative and dramatic” (Bogart and Landau 137). A production, therefore, is not formed in one rehearsal as an improvisational performance might be; SITI Company members generally rehearse for four weeks to prepare for a new piece. This brief rehearsal period for a fully realized production is primarily spent in action, with only a few of these days devoted to discussion and collection of research; this rehearsal length is only possible because of the company’s pre-existing knowledge of each other, and shared process

(Bogart, “Artist Voices”). During these rehearsals, the performers begin with the development of Composition pieces, which are used to generate material as it pertains to the production’s designated topic or theme. From this material, then, Bogart must implement directorial montage to guide and select “ideas, moments, [and] images” that will or will not find a place in the final performance (Landau 27). However, before the active portion of Composition begins, the vital process of research and investigation must occur.

Bogart often spends weeks before and during rehearsals engaging in what she refers to as

“source-work.” Former collaborating director Tina Landau defines source-work as “a series of activities done at the beginning of the rehearsal process to get in touch—both intellectually and emotionally, both individually and collectively—with “the source” from which you are working”

(17). Bogart dedicates this time to finding inspirational material, or “sources,” that can shape the work. She often “reads a ton of books and buys dozens of new CDs to listen to” in this early

33 preparatory phase of the production process (Landau 18). Sources can also come in the form of photographs, movies, newspaper articles, found objects—anything that speaks to the primary question of the piece. For Bogart, when beginning a new work, it should be as if “the director has caught a disease, and somehow in those critical early moments in the process she has to make the disease contagious. Source-work spreads the disease. Source-work is an invitation to obsession” (18). For example, because her most recent devised production, A Rite, sought to explore the riot induced by the premiere ballet performance of The Right of Spring, Bogart sought to immerse herself in Igor Stravinsky’s score. She became fascinated by investigating

“the theoretical, historical, musicological, neurological, [and] sociological bombs that The Rite

[of Spring] set off” (“A Rite”).

Source-work is also assigned to the performers to prepare for rehearsals. Landau explains that this “source-work is the time taken (before you begin rehearsing anything the audience is actually going to see onstage) to enter with your entire being into the world, the issues, the heart of your material” (17). This performer-based source-work takes place after

Bogart has already journeyed through the more extensive phase of her research and has imagined some semblance of structure, themes, and/or questions that the work might answer (18-19). SITI

Company member Ellen Lauren explains that the “first day when you come back with your homework, you are already responsible for the collective” (66). This initiates the performer- driven generation of raw material as facilitated by Bogart, which will provide the foundation for the Composition. Typical initial source-work assignments from Bogart call for the performers to make lists of what is known and unknown about the project as a whole, regarding the character, setting, conflict, text, and plot, encouraging that “these mysterious unknowns that make you uncertain and nervous about the piece, constitute fertile ground” (Bogart and Landau 155).

The participants are also called to begin collecting various texts, images, photographs, music, objects and other sources that help them to connect to the world of the project, which will then be discussed with the collective group in a series of “lateral-thinking” sessions that occur in the first two-to-three rehearsals (Bogart and Landau 155-56). During these group brainstorming sessions, the company utilizes free association to flesh-out “a collective image of the world of the play” based on the source-work collected by the group members (Bogart, A Director

Prepares 141). As a result, the members are able to detect similarities and contrasts to devise a unified group vision of the production’s potential journey. Lauren discusses the importance of the collaborative lateral-thinking sessions, stating: “on one level you’re hearing information about the other characters and how your role fits into the story. Mainly what you’re hearing, though, is how the other people think, the tone of each other’s creative energy. You familiarize yourself very quickly with the play and each other. You really can’t hide” (66-67).

Following the primary research and brainstorming phases, the active process of

Composition often begins with an exploration of the physical Viewpoints. When just enough time has been dedicated to the exchange of ideas, “the tables and chairs are shoved aside for good . . . [because] the ideas have to be translated into the body” (67). The actors are no longer allowed excessive time to sit and discuss and must begin actively exploring Composition.

Bogart “is a firm believer that rehearsal is not only an intellectual exercise, [but that it is] primarily . . . a physical one” (67). Thus, the majority of formal rehearsal time is dedicated to a physical exploration of the material.

Imperative to the active collaboration process of Composition is its physical component.

Therefore, Bogart urges the performers to move to action and follow their instinctual impulses

(Bogart and Landau 138). Depending on the size of the group, Bogart often divides new

35 performers into smaller groups of three to five participants to begin the practical portion of

Composition work, though her regular company members often create Composition pieces with the full group or individually (Bogart and Landau 139). In order to promote active participation in the Composition process, Bogart often assigns collaborators a specific list of ingredients that must be included in the creative, physical unit that they develop. When not targeted toward a specific performance, a standard, generalized example of such ingredients may include, but is not limited to:

fifteen consecutive seconds of stillness; fifteen consecutive seconds of

simultaneous action; a sustained moment when you don’t know if somebody is

laughing or crying; a sustained moment when everyone is looking up; a sustained

passionate kiss; an accident (planned and staged as such); a surprise entrance; an

inappropriate interruption; one gesture repeated five times (or ten or fifteen);

twenty seconds of stillness; twenty seconds of high-speed talking; the

establishment of an expectation that is subsequently broken; the use of music in

three different ways, one of which has the music coming from an unexpected

source; revelation of an object (the discovery or exposure of some object that was

not apparent up to that point); revelation of space (revealing some portion of the

performance space that was not visible or recognized up to that point); revelation

of character (a character’s identity turns out to be other than first assumed or

introduced). (Cummings 128)

As well, a common assignment for participants calls for the group members to create their own montage. By defining film montage as a series of shots edited together, a Composition assignment might ask that participants attempt to incorporate and juxtapose close-ups, pans,

36 long-shots, dissolves, superimpositions, and other filmmaking techniques in order to discover the relationship of form to content in devised theatre creation (Bogart and Landau 142-43).

In order to avoid over-thinking or planning the process, Bogart often applies “exquisite pressure” on the group by placing a time constraint on the group’s task. She seeks to only allow enough time “to create something . . . [that the performers] can own and repeat (so it’s not just improv and accident), but not so much time that they can stop to think or judge even for an instant” (138). By avoiding self-imposed censorship, the performers will be able to more readily access their instinctual creativity and thereby offer Bogart dynamic, instinctually organic units of action. Groups are often given anywhere from three to thirty minutes to complete a Composition exercise, forcing the participants to create quickly, without hesitation or afterthought (Landau

26). When working on a specific production, the organizational, thought-based work originated in the group’s earlier lateral-thinking sessions announces specific directional choices which thereby spark the active phase of the Composition work (Lauren 67). In this way, “action, rather than psychology, induce[s] emotion and feeling” (Bogart and Landau 16). By providing participants with a set checklist of items to include under the prescribed time limit, the collaborators are forced to move beyond an analytical frame of mind and work from a place of pure physical instinct. This promotes “a quick or instantaneous response in order to inhibit premature judgments on work in progress” (Cummings 130).

Early in the active Composition process, Bogart serves as more of a facilitator than director of the work. Composition work asks that its contributors “work with a spirit of generosity” and never deny another’s suggestion (Bogart and Landau 139-40). In this way, she encourages the performers to work as a collective group, making decisions as a group based in the organic flow of the process, while she as the director supervises and keeps creativity and

37 ideas flowing freely. By shifting the traditional director-performer power structure, “Bogart cultivates a way of allowing her collaborators to develop their own potentialities. . . . As a director she empowers her performers rather than restricting them to preconceived concepts. Her vision is one that emerges from the collective process” (Lampe 33).

SITI member Barney O’Hanlon describes two, first-day Composition assignments given during rehearsal for A Rite: to create a “dance of death” and to conduct spontaneous inter- company interviews. The dance of death sequence stems from Stravinsky’s sacrificial virgin who dances herself to death in the final moments of The Rite of Spring. For this Composition, the performers of A Rite were required to create a phase of movement comprised of seven quotidian gestures that, if repeated in a loop, would cause death. Although the simple gestures themselves were not dance-oriented, when combined in succession, the gestures were unified to form a dance piece that would be repeated until exhaustion (O’Hanlon). This brief Composition piece, to which the company members often returned during rehearsals, was eventually selected by Bogart and incorporated into the final performance in an example of directorial montage.

Because the members of SITI and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company (with whom

Bogart’s company was collaborating on the piece) had never previously worked together, the interview Composition was structured as a talk-back session that would introduce the two companies personally and artistically. The structure of this Composition was also selected for the finalized production with significant expansion after the two companies became better- acquainted. This interview, though, was more than a mere “meet-and-greet” between two collaborating companies. Instead, it offered the opportunity for the two groups based in collaboration to introduce themselves and share their techniques of creative development with each other (O’Hanlon).

The physical realization of Composition work, however, does not always lead to a final product; more of these explorative pieces created by the company members tend to be discarded rather than utilized. Yet, the Composition lays the groundwork for the development of the entire piece. Via the generated material offered from Composition, Bogart is able to guide the work, selecting and stitching together individual moments to create a more unified whole and her desired moments of directorial montage.

Only once the physicality and the “choreography is refined and able to be concisely repeated . . . [is] the text . . . laid in” (Lauren 68). In this way, much of the meaning of the added text is derived from its physical counterpart. For Bogart, the “words are important . . . as sound and music. Comparable to her approach to body language, she physicalizes and formalizes spoken language, looking for its aural shape in the overall scenic composition rather than concentration on its content” (22). Thus, the text remains secondary to the action of the production as a means of communication on the stage. The text is gleaned from the “large quantities of material pertaining to a given subject” which has been narrowed down to form a

“bible of miscellaneous ideas, quotations, and extended passages” collected during the research and source-work phase of the early rehearsal process (Cummings 104).

As the piece is finalized, a process of layering is undertaken as Bogart weaves together these various elements of text and physicality—action that embodies the concepts of directorial montage. The finished product contains “three different continuities—a verbal, spoken text; a physical text of movement and gesture; and a design text of sound, light, music, and visuals— which maintain a measure of independence as they overlap, interweave, and sometimes crash into one another” (106). This notion of layering and collision is directly related to the definition

39 of montage and is consistently used in the original, devised works of Bogart and her collaborators.

Bogart’s Composition process has been utilized throughout the majority of her work as a director. However, her consistent work with SITI in the company structure has led to a true honing of this process. As a director and facilitator of creative collaboration, Bogart’s primary objective “is to make something happen, to conjure an event, to elicit a quality of attention and then to trigger a moment of aesthetic arrest that jumps the gap between actor and audience”

(274). In this way, as evidenced in A Rite, Bogart utilizes the concepts of directorial montage to create new meaning with the material generated throughout the rehearsal process.

Chapter 4

ANALYZING THE COLLISION: DIRECTORIAL MONTAGE IN A RITE

Reflective of Anne Bogart’s commitment to collaboration and her continuous search for new, engaging, creative activity, her most recent devised work was created as a joint effort between her company and another. Bogart and the Saratoga International Theater Institute

(SITI) Company and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane (BTJ/AZ) Dance Company were commissioned in 2012 by Carolina Performing Arts to collaborate and create A Rite in honor of the one hundred year anniversary of the premiere performance of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of

Spring (“A Rite”). The original production, a ballet choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky, included the portrayal of a virgin sacrifice; and the production incited a riot in Paris during its premiere on

May 29, 1913 (Robin). The piece “is widely regarded as a seminal work . . . a frenetic, jagged orchestral ballet that boldly rejected the ordered harmonies and comfort of traditional composition” (Toor). The performance continued even after the riot began in the audience, during which time the choreographer, Nijinsky shouted the rhythm to the dancers from backstage because the orchestra “disintegrated into a cacophony of confused instruments” (Lehrer 122).

The ballet commissioner, Sergei Diaghilev, also began flashing the house lights on and off, thereby adding to the frantic chaos of the moment. As Kelly and Simeone note: “the outrageous costumes, unusual choreography . . . bizarre story of pagan sacrifice, [and] Stravinsky's musical innovations” have all been cited as contributors for the audience uprising that continued until the police arrived.

Since this now infamous premiere, Stravinsky’s score has been reinterpreted countless times worldwide. In fact, when originally approached about developing the seminal work by

Carolina Performing Arts at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Bill T. Jones was

41 hesitant to accept the project, claiming that the masterpiece was overdone and “dusty” after countless versions throughout the century (Jones). However, Jones explains that Bogart, who was separately invited to create her own work with SITI, “proposed that we work together, [and] it seemed like a no-brainer” (Jones). Thus, despite Jones’ previous prejudices, the two companies began working together to find a new way to bring Stravinsky’s Rite to the stage for its North Carolina premiere in January of 2013 (SITI Company).

As evidenced in January 2014 performances of A Rite at the University of Richmond, throughout the production, multiple instances of Sergei Eisenstein’s different phases of montage, which include metric, rhythmic, tonal, overtonal, and intellectual montage, as well as vertical montage, can be found. In this chapter, I analyze Bogart’s utilization of directorial montage techniques through the application of Eisenstein’s categories of cinematic montage to A Rite.

Paired with Nijinksy’s choreography, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring highlights Russian folklore regarding the advent of spring and focuses on one young maiden who is chosen as the sacrificial virgin that concludes the piece by dancing until she dies (Sigman). This plot is difficult to recognize in the resulting devised work created by SITI and the BTJ/AZ Dance

Company, though various elements can be found. Primarily, A Rite focuses on engaging a more updated perspective of ritual sacrifice. This concept is largely explored through the character of a male, World War I veteran. The soldier’s story is spliced among the overlapping narratives of other characters from different time periods who seek to explain Stravinsky’s music or to unravel the meaning of space and time (McGregor).

The companies’ collaborative work has no singular, linear plot. Rather, the show relies on three major storylines that interweave to form the crux of the production’s narrative

(McGregor). These stories spring from the journeys of three unnamed characters who, for the

42 purpose of clarity in this chapter, I have named for their function in the production: the musicologist (SITI member Ellen Lauren), the soldier (SITI member Will Bond), and the physicist (SITI member Stephen Duff Webber) (SITI Company).

The musicologist primarily functions as the narrator to the story of Stravinsky’s music as she explains the music’s history, style, and instrumentation to both the audience and actors. She also presents the history of the ballet’s original, riot-inducing production, its suggested causes, and the impact of the event. The musicologist, a quirky, but all-knowing character, steps in and out of the dancing action of the production to narrate the backstory of Stravinsky’s ballet that parallels (or perhaps incites) the actions of the other characters. While she often tends toward repetition, a key function in the performance structure of A Rite, the musicologist primarily progresses forward with the narrative of Stravinsky’s score (McGregor).

The soldier, a returned World War I veteran, exhibits symptoms of a fragmented, fragile mind. The victim of a traumatic head-injury, he often re-lives experiences from the war, indicative of post-traumatic stress disorder; he is unable to distinguish time and most often lives in the past (McGregor). The soldier has an unfulfilled relationship with a woman (BTJ/AZ member Jenna Riegel) who tries to bring him back to reality (SITI Company). Often, he interrupts or is unaware of the dancing action that exists around him on the stage as he experiences a battle flashback and begins shooting a large pantomimed machine gun. His narrative is circular and constantly loops back on itself (McGregor).

The physicist serves as the third primary speaking role. Speaking most often in the words of string theorist Brian Greene and author/former-physicist Jonah Lehrer, the production’s physicist questions the role, function, and importance of man’s construct of time. He wonders aloud about the existence of space and the potential for infinite realities. His path is more linear,

43 though he sometimes seems to reverse as he reiterates earlier observations from his existential commentary (McGregor).

These three characters rarely prove aware of the others’ presences, but their words and actions still offer response to those of the others for the audience. Ultimately, the three main characters serve as the guiding forces to the actions of the others onstage as well. Each of the storylines unfolds in fragmented, non-sequential order, heavily relying on abstract movement and music for communication (McGregor).

In the production’s opening sequence, multiple phases of Eisenstein’s concept of directorial montage prove evident. The show begins with a dark, empty stage, above which dangles an oversized light bulb as the only source of illumination. At the sound of three offstage snaps, the cast rushes onstage as music from “Sacrifice,” the final movement of Stravinsky’s ballet, jars the scene to life and light with a chaotic, frenzied, wordless dance (McGregor). In this introductory arrangement, both rhythmic and metric montage manifest.

According to Eisenstein, in film, rhythmic montage is created so that “the content within the shot is an equivalent element in determining the actual lengths of the shots” (The Eisenstein

Reader 117). In rhythmic montage, then, the length of the action determines the length of the shot. Eisenstein clarifies that “the shot is a montage cell. . . . its embryo” which births montage through collision with other shots (87). When transferred to the stage, the “shots” or “embryos” of montage can be compared to the movement of the individual bodies of performers as they collide with those around them. In A Rite, rhythmic montage can then be observed as each performer displays his/her individual “dance of death,” a reflection of the virgin’s sacrificial dance in Nijinsky’s ballet. The dances are composed of a series of quotidian gestures—a hand wave, a pitching motion, a salute, a kneel, a kick, a punch, among other simple movements—

44 unique to each performer, which, if repeated in succession over extremely lengthy periods of time, would ultimately cause death due to the physical taxation (Bogart and Wong). The physical extremity of this dance is to be expected of the performers who have dance training, however, the SITI performers are undoubtedly able to accomplish this physically strenuous movement sequence (which is generally not expected from mainstream actors) because of the rigorous nature of the physical Viewpoints training. Each dance is performed within its own timeframe and tempo. As the dancers perform at different tempos right beside one another, a chaotic tension builds due to the collision of these tempos in a form of rhythmic montage

(McGregor). This created tension reflects the off-putting and frenetic nature of the original ballet premiere.

Each of the movement patterns change, however, with the interspersion of elements of

Nijinsky’s original 1913 choreography. The cast performs, in unison or individually, several techniques utilized in the ballet’s final dance solo within their own dances of death: “the trembling knees, the fist pounded on the floor, the anguished hand on the forehead, the deranged tilts of head and torso, the manual clutching of a single thigh” (MaCaulay). When performed in unison, however, the crouched position of the shaking knees is held for a duration that extends much longer than any gesture comprising the performers’ individual movements (McGregor).

After this pause in the dance, the tempo of each dance is increased, reflecting the concepts of metric montage, which in film is composed of shots that “are joined together according to their lengths in a formula-scheme. . . . [and] is realized in the repetition of these formulas” (Eisenstein,

The Eisenstein Reader 116). Metric montage is utilized in this dance of death as the performers so drastically alter the formulaic patterns of their previously established individual tempos, further adding to the tension and anxiety of the introductory moments.

Vertical montage also plays a key role in this introduction sequence of A Rite. This category of montage refers specifically to the utilization of sound or music as it corresponds to the visual image. First, Eisenstein claims that sound can be simply used to complement the image. However, the nature of vertical montage is created through the “orchestral counterpoint of visual and sound images” which maintains the notion of montage as the collision between discordant elements (81). Music, a central component to the entire production which is created in reference to Stravinsky’s score, adds simultaneously to both the chaos and order of the dancing in A Rite. The production presents the music via multiple recordings of Stravinsky’s ballet, including a classical orchestral version, a scratchy, old record-type version of the orchestral recording, and a jazz version. The classical recording is used for the opening sequence and plays at the tempo set by Stravinsky. As the performers present their dances of death, however, each sets his/her own tempo, which does not necessarily correspond with the music. This discord creates a jarring, disjointed effect, which is further interrupted by the unifying motion of the shaking knees that does occur in sync with the musical arrangement

(McGregor). The action, therefore, is either led by, or in opposition to, the score. The collision of unity/disunity in regard to the action and the music creates an example of vertical montage.

This montage sets the tone for the rest of the production which dips in and out of chaos and disorder.

Elements collide within this opening sequence to garner even further response from an audience. Nijinsky’s choreography serves as the first of these elements. Those familiar with

Nijinsky’s century-old choreography would immediately recognize the unusual action as historically linked to this piece, though others may not understand the movement that seems to link the performers to one another. The second element of observed collision manifests in the

46 music. A Rite begins with music from “Evocation of the Ancestors,” which is part of the final

“Sacrifice” section of Stravinsky’s score. This introduction makes direct reference to the ballet, while also announcing a lack of intention to reproduce the work in any typical fashion

(McGregor). Combined with the juxtaposition of the rhythmic and metric montage of the dance, these elements stand in contradiction to one another to create an intellectual montage for the audience, which Eisenstein claims to be “an even higher category of montage” than all the rest as it seeks to incite a cerebral response from the viewer (The Eisenstein Reader 123). Though only some will realize its full potential, those who are familiar with Stravinsky’s and Nijinsky’s original work understand many important motifs that will subsequently arise throughout the piece after viewing A Rite’s introduction. As the performers begin with Stravinsky’s conclusion, they establish the fluid, adjustable nature of time. They also present this production’s atypical structure which consists of a collaborative unit while it is also comprised of individual units, ultimately creating a multi-point focus on the stage (McGregor). In this way, the audience must assemble the image, categorizing the action as either whole or a collection of individual actions.

The assemblage of these elements as selected by the director(s) for the audience to unravel creates intellectual montage. The audience is not only engaged in an emotional way to the events on the stage, they are likewise engaged in “a process of logical deduction” as guided by the intellectual montage created by the aforementioned elements (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein

Reader 110).

Following this introductory section, a new level of directorial montage begins. All of the performers rush offstage and the soldier makes his first entrance as a character isolated from the group. He lifts a hand-held tape recorder into the air and plays an old, scratchy recording of the first notes of Stravinsky’s score, re-establishing the progressive ordering of the music which will

47 continue in sequential order (with some repetition) for the remainder of the production

(McGregor). The musicologist introduces herself afterward, asking: “what is it about that particular night, that particular riot?” (A Rite). As she begins describing The Rite of Spring’s history, the other performers scurry onto the empty stage, forming two parallel lines that face each other in profile. Suddenly, a piercing shout interrupts the musicologist mid-sentence and the performers begin a step-routine: they stomp, clap, whistle, and intone with wordless shouts and shrieks to the rhythm of “The Augurs of Spring,” the second song from Stravinsky’s ballet, for about fifteen seconds (McGregor). Then, the musicologist continues her narration: “And what with this piece? With the circles and everything? Ya know, well, they just didn’t get it” (A

Rite). Another scream interrupts and the performers present their chaotic rhythm again, this time continuing through the end of the two and a half minute musical segment (McGregor).

The splicing together of the musicologist’s narration and the performers’ vocalization of the score provides a second layer of meaning to the musicologist’s words about an audience who does not quite understand what is happening in the performance. In this example of vertical montage in A Rite, the music is created by the performers rather than through a recorded orchestration. The vocal score stands in contradiction with the words of the musicologist. The nontraditional music collides with the musicologist’s narration to create a sense of chaos on the stage similar to that which she is discussing. However, the contradiction also invokes a certain amount of humor as well as the musicologist sits solemnly frozen on the edge of her stool while the cacophony of the performers’ rhythm continues behind her (McGregor).

The montage creates new meaning through each of the aforementioned juxtaposing elements in this early scene. If the musicologist continued with her narration without the interruption of the vocalized score, an audience would have only seen and heard her words,

48 without any understanding or further frame of reference. Likewise, had the vocal score occurred without the musicologist’s narration, it would have been meaningless and likely unrecognized as part of Stravinsky’s ballet. Paired in conjunction this way, however, the audience is able to move beyond a response of “I see” or “I hear” to that of “I feel”—which is a target outcome of

Eisenstein’s vertical montage (Eisenstein, “The Filmic Fourth Dimension” 71). In this second example of vertical montage, the elements chosen by the director(s) collide and create new meaning.

As the production continues the multiple interwoven narratives of the three principle characters, various elements begin repeating to create an evolving form of montage that occurs across the body of the performance. Often this repetition occurs when the performers split during times of onstage chaos into their own segments of individualized movement and images which are later repeated in a new context. One of these images features SITI actress Akiko

Aizawa who stands atop a stool with an expression of joyful surprise. Although this singular action is repeated multiple times, it is finally repeated and completed in fullness in one breathtaking scene (McGregor). Aizawa climbs atop her stool and begins reciting: “I dreamed that sunrise was coming” (A Rite). As she recites, she begins walking forward, over an empty space in the air, but before her foot falls, a company member places another stool for her, followed by another, and so on, until she appears to be walking on air. Aizawa stops speaking aloud, but her recorded voice takes over as her slow, thoughtful journey continues. Her path weaves in curves and loops across the entirety of the stage space. Eventually Aizawa’s pathway proceeds horizontally as the company members begin holding the stools sideways in the air while others hold Aizawa’s body so that she is walking parallel to the stage floor; yet the rhythms of established movement are never interrupted. Finally, the stools are held vertically at

49 shoulder height and Aizawa finishes her journey high above the heads of the others. As she marches slowly forward, she never changes tempo, yet the others are running silently on the ground below to continue pulling away old stools and replacing them to create a continuous pathway (McGregor). Undoubtedly, this element of montage proves possible via the rigorous

Viewpoints training undertaken by SITI members, which allows them to physically manipulate both space and time in dynamic ways. The collision of the two opposing tempos exemplifies

Eisenstein’s concept of metric montage, which, in film, refers to shot length as determined by a specific formulaic pattern (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader 116). In this segment of action in

A Rite, the shots, as housed by the performers, are based in two different tempos alongside one another. The two juxtaposed rhythms creates a “distinct emotional tension” due to the combination of these two formulaic rhythms (116). This tension created by metric montage foreshadows the dark nature of Aizawa’s recorded poem (McGregor).

The recording plays as she walks: “I dreamed that dawn was coming. How absurd I dreamed that sunrise. Perhaps dawn sits upon this mountain, but it will not have the splendid light of my dream” (A Rite). As the recording and her journey wind to a close, a soft buzzing of speaker feedback sound grows in volume and intensity until it finally drowns out all other sound.

The soldier also begins mouthing the words of her recorded recitation as she continues to walk

(McGregor). As these sounds collide with the action on the stage, vertical montage is utilized.

Further elements of vertical montage can be found as Aizawa walks across the stools.

The aural element in the form of Aizawa’s spoken and recorded words as well as the final mechanized reverberation sound is contrasted with the content of the recitation as well as the onstage movement of the performers. The calm, meditation-like quality of Aizawa’s journey is matched by the melodic flow of her speech-pattern in this segment. However, this peacefulness

50 is contrasted with the pessimistic words of her recitation as she claims that the beauty of her dream could never be achieved in the reality of life. She also communicates a deep desire to disappear into the weightlessness of the false light of the spring, thereby tearing her body from the torment (A Rite). In this way, the aural element of the words contrasts with the metric montage of her physicality on the stage to create new meaning for both. The isolated action of

Aizawa’s movement across the stool-tops suggests a journey with little other meaning attached.

However, when contrasted with the dark words of the poem, her meditated movement suggests that perhaps Aizawa is considering suicide via the false light of her dream—the false light of spring. She marches slowly across the stage, following the metaphoric path of life’s journey wherever it is established for her, until finally, upon interruption by the high-pitched reverberation sound, she chooses instead to trust the false light of death (McGregor).

While walking across the stools, both the vertical and metric montage collide, then, in an example of tonal montage which refers to “emotional tonality” (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein

Reader 118). The combination of the metric and vertical montage as discussed here suggests a dark, ominous link attached to the dawn and the spring, rather than beauty, light, life, and regrowth as are the usual connotations. In film, the emotional resonance afforded by tonal montage can also be influenced by changes in camera angle (118). Therefore, the changing angles of Aizawa’s body on the stage in A Rite as she travels through the experience of her dream are unnatural and take the place of changing camera angles. This serves to further create a negative emotional tone that covers the entire segment, despite its surface-level positivity. The contrasts here illicit feelings of anxiety as the “dominant emotional resonance” of the scene in the onlookers (118). This negative interpretation is corroborated when, after her journey ends,

Aizawa greatly slows the tempo of her speech to emphasize each word and shouts: “I dreamed

51 that spring was coming. What is this feeling?” (A Rite). Then, she is lifted from her stool and carried around the stage as if she is flying (McGregor). Without the montage elements that came before, this flight might have gone without understanding; however, the combination of both metric and vertical elements to create tonal montage presents her elevation as a confirmation of

Aizawa’s surrender to death. This moment of flight also mirrors an earlier dance segment during which the soldier was lifted by the other performers and flown through the air, thereby also forging a new ominous link between the two via repetition.

Another action repeated during the production which is completed via montage involves the tossing of stools across the stage. This action occurs briefly throughout the show, but is highlighted in two specific moments. The first significant instance occurs early in the production after the soldier’s first address to the audience. Three men run on the stage and begin tossing stools to one another in a rhythmic pattern from offstage in order to place the objects on the stage. As they throw, the men often pause in synchronization, thereby interrupting the established pattern of throwing/catching before continuing as the recorded notes of “Adoration of the Earth: Introduction,” the first movement of Stravinsky’s ballet, play from the soldier’s uplifted device (McGregor). This interruption of tempo is an example of metric montage, though its purpose is unclear at this early moment. Instead, it seems merely an interesting method of conveying necessary set pieces to the stage for the following scene.

Later in the piece, however, this action is repeated again as the three men re-enter during one of the physicist’s iterations of the space-time quandary (McGregor). The physicist muses aloud: “the flow of time always seems to be in one direction toward the future, but that might not be right. . . . Why does time seem to only move in one direction? Why doesn’t it go backwards?” (A Rite). The men begin tossing the stools, which are already on the stage at this

52 time, and transporting them offstage, repeating the earlier process, but in reverse, thereby reflecting the words of the physicist (McGregor). Meaning is attributed to this example of metric montage as the stools are tossed from person-to-person via intellectual montage, which urges a move beyond emotional or physiological meaning to that of intellect (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein

Reader 123). As the physicist continues, he discusses how the speeding up or slowing down of time affects one’s perception of the present, and the men begin slowing down their movements drastically, before reversing off of the stage. Tempo in the Viewpoints training asks actors to consider “how fast or slow the action is performed,” urging actors to isolate specific movements and manipulate the tempo of the movements beyond the common “medium tempo” of performance (Bogart and Landau 36-38). The manipulation of tempo, an inherent component in

Bogart’s Viewpoints training, allows for the utilization of directorial montage in this scene. This simple example shows how the earlier action of throwing the stools seemed without meaning, but when posed next to the physicist’s words, the meaning of even the earlier action is changed

(McGregor). The throwing/catching of the stools is therefore assigned meaning via an audience member’s intellectual journey back in time to the moment the action was first seen on the stage.

Thus, the montage here does not simply take place in this one scene, but across nearly thirty minutes of action throughout the production.

The aforementioned intellectual montage also highlights the circular nature of the production and its treatment of action, further reinforcing the questions asked by the physicist in regard to time as a linear construct. Time as presented in the production is repetitive, seemingly moving both forward and backward as it loops toward a conclusion. Audience members must therefore make the intellectual leap to piece together these images presented at various points throughout the production. The implementation of directorial montage forces the audience

53 members’ own intellectual questioning into the meaning and nature of time as they find the strings that weave these repetitive moments together.

The progression of time is again questioned in a later sequence when the performers seem to break out of the action of the production and engage in conversation with the musicologist.

The performers stop the action as if to remind the audience of the formalist nature of this production and ask the musicologist (who remains in character) how she was first introduced to music. As she provides a rambling explanation of her interest, she also incorporates a discussion of the second part of Stravinsky’s repetitive score which maintains a difficult, circular musical structure (McGregor). The structure of Stravinsky’s ballet, then, parallels the very structure of A

Rite in this manner.

After the musicologist’s explanation, she begins conducting performer I-Ling Liu

(BTJ/AZ member) in a vocal score of Part One’s “Spring Rounds,” which the other performers join as the music continues. This second instance of the vocalized score is sung (rather than stomped/chanted) by the performers. The segment takes the progression of the music slightly backward in time, recalling the earlier presentation of the score. In Stravinsky’s ballet, “The

Spring Rounds” occurs immediately before the abduction of the virgin for sacrifice. In A Rite, the vocalization hits its climax; then, the soldier begins speaking over the singing, telling a story of his time at war, as he retreats into the dark past of his memory (McGregor). The two aural elements of the vocal score and the overlapping story told by the soldier create a vertical montage. In this instance, however, the aural elements contradict one another as opposed to the sound contradicting a visual element. In the original production, Stravinsky’s music, as also vocalized by the performers of A Rite, presents the innocent maidens of whom one will be selected for sacrifice. As the soldier begins shouting of his exploits while at war over the voices

54 of the performers, he thereby links himself to Stravinsky’s sacrificial maiden. This example of vertical montage adds yet another layer of meaning to the scene.

As the soldier continues his tales of war, he begins to tell of screams heard in battle, and the music suddenly ceases. This instance of vertical montage serves as a counterpoint to the telling of his story, as it presents the opposite of his words. The sudden silence draws him from his story and he begs: “Why did you stop? What do you remember? What would you change?

I don’t even remember why I was there. I don’t even remember why I’m here!” (A Rite). After his pleas and exclamation, a low humming begins from the other performers. The humming slowly grows in intensity and volume, which seems to cause him to retreat further from reality

(McGregor). He shouts about hearing the music and reiterates the words of the physicist, asking

“why is it that time seems only to move in one direction? Why doesn’t it go backwards?” before echoing the unspoken words of a commanding officer, yelling “prepare to advance! Yes sir!

Soldier On!” (A Rite). At this point, the vocal interpretation of “Spring Rounds” continues while the soldier marches upstage and exits with his back to the audience and the music. The vocals this time are much more jarring and almost out of tune in an overpowering cacophony of sound that seems to swallow up the memory of the broken soldier. The vertical montage elements are combined to create a tonal montage. The chaos of the music combined with the soldier’s painful mental break incites an emotional reaction, as evidenced by audible audience gasps in response to the tortured emotional intensity of this moment (McGregor).

The emotional audience response to the soldier’s mental anguish combined with the content of the aural elements then leads to an intellectual reaction. The elements of vertical montage include the soldier’s war story, its interruption by “The Spring Rounds,” his question about the music’s cessation, his further questioning of time structure, his shouts of advance, and

55 the final climax of the vocalized “Spring Rounds” score. These elements call upon several earlier moments in the production that provided their own meaning as created separately from the plight of the soldier. Though these moments are not performed again, the soldier calls them to the memory of the audience, thereby inciting the intellectual montage. He alludes to the words spoken by both the musicologist and the physicist, attempting to adopt their stories; however, he is unable to connect to either. As “The Spring Rounds” continues and he marches off the stage, the audience sees his path to war as the final preparation for sacrifice.

The final ten minutes of the production combine all of Eisenstein’s montage categories as multiple and conflicting events unfold on the stage. After the last vocalized performance of “The

Spring Rounds,” the soldier exits and the other performers circle around the musicologist for a discussion. She reminds them of Stravinsky’s musical structure. She tells them: “in the beginning, The Rite [of Spring] is easy, oh yeah, the opening is warm. . . . But then the next section, “The Augurs,” begins, and it sounds like a migraine!” (A Rite). The contrast of these two opening songs in description here and as deconstructed earlier in the performance creates a juxtaposition, which remains a musical theme for Stravinsky’s ballet. It becomes clear that

Stravinsky’s score is loaded with unfulfilled expectations. The musicologist also mirrors the circular nature of the music by returning to the introductory songs in this discussion period which further highlights the repetition inherent in A Rite. In this way, she makes a parallel to the content of Stravinsky’s score to the SITI and BTJ/AZ response in A Rite. She continues questioning the performers: “So what was it like working on this?” (A Rite). The performers step out of character and begin discussing the process of creating of A Rite. They speak openly, and there is no music playing, nor is there dancing occurring; it seems as if the actors are being interviewed. Each offers comment, sometimes speaking over one another, to discuss the creative

56 process and offer ideas about its potential significance. When one claims that they are building an apocalypse—a war, Riegel rushes from the group to sit on the floor and cries out in opposition, abruptly ceasing the interviews (McGregor).

The performers move into a line, sitting on stools at the edge of the stage while the musicologists continues a discussion with the audience about the ballet’s Paris premiere. As the actors sit, they begin making unobtrusive, seemingly normal movements, such as yawning, scratching an elbow, leaning on a fist, etc., that are soon being repeated at a gradually increased tempo by others in the line while the musicologist continues her history lesson (McGregor). The physical Viewpoints of both repetition and gesture emerge in this action sequence as the performers appear to pass and repeat one another’s gestures. Metric montage is formed as the formulation of a metric pattern of movement is established. Rhythmic montage also manifests in these patterns of movement which seem very natural, taking place in just enough time to complete the action without calling attention to it. However, the tempo of these actions increases as more performers adopt the repetition. A “formal tension through acceleration” is created as the absolute length of each action is decreased so that the viewing of the actions (which take the place of a cinematic “shot”) are more hurried (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader 117).

As the duration of each action shortens (rhythmic montage) and the pacing of the actions simultaneously quickens (metric montage), the actors are soon moving almost constantly. The musicologist further teaches that “this dance is all about the absence of order” (A Rite). The performers then mirror this statement as they begin arguing with one another. The tension of the quickened paces erupts into verbal conflict and they interrupt the musicologist’s narration

(McGregor). One performer shouts: “how can you not have cacophony?. . . . You want harmony? You get noise!” (A Rite). Others seek peace, but the conflict proceeds unavoidably.

The musicologist continues in her attempts to educate, assuring the group that “the feeling of music begins when the patterns we imagine begin to break down. The Rite [of Spring], of course, is one long breakdown” (A Rite). Immediately after her statement, the soldier reasserts his presence on the stage and screams as he fires his pantomimed machine gun. As if in response to the musicologist’s statement, the soldier’s mental break is finally complete, and his lover,

Riegel, begins crying soundlessly alone. The separate actions of the musicologist’s narration, the performer’s argumentation, and the soldier’s mental collapse, seem to be effected by, or in response to, one another (McGregor). The conflict between these elements creates a tonal montage, garnering the feeling of dread in response.

As the performers continue quarreling, each reaches his or her own breaking point until the group erupts into a shouting match. The soldier begins shooting, with a longer duration, and a low humming note begins which underscores the arguments. Finally an unintelligible quarrel transpires; the humming sound in the background becomes discordant music that takes over the scene. Finally, the musicologist reaches out to the soldier, placing a hand on his shoulder, which causes the music and the arguing to instantly cease (McGregor). The music, quarrelling, and following silence collide to create vertical montage in this scene. These elements of vertical montage further find conflict with the action of the soldier, the performers, and the musicologist, which highlights the chaos of the multiple simultaneous conflicts.

The musicologist then crosses downstage to once again address the audience, attempting to realign the action of the piece as the soldier plays the lonely melody of The Rite of Spring’s introduction on the piano. While he plays, several of the women, including the musicologist while she encourages the others to change their consciousness in order to learn to hear the music in a different way, are lifted atop the stools across the stage. Once in the air, the women crouch

58 and shake their knees, recalling the introductory choreography that comprised the dance of death, providing an ominous element of foreshadowing for the soldier. Then, the music leaps forward to “The Evocation of the Ancestors,” one of the final musical selections before the virgin sacrifice that concludes Stravinsky’s ballet, where the music ceased before the soldier’s piano melody regressed to Stravinsky’s introduction (McGregor).

Suddenly, the lights change to a warm golden-amber glow, and time seems to shift as the traditional orchestral recording of “The Evocation” is replaced by a jazz reinterpretation.

Everyone joyfully dances the Charleston, laughing and cheering, while the soldier watches.

Then, the music shifts back to the classical recording, and the performers correspondingly stiffen, somberly performing elements of the original Nijinsky choreography (McGregor). This shift of time and place flashes again and again, abruptly and seamlessly, playing just long enough for the musical phrase to be completed in an example of rhythmic montage. In the two contrasting incarnations of the music, the content of the musical phrase determines the length of the scene before the next shift in light occurs.

Light, which Eisenstein claims has the power to determine the “emotional designation” of a shot, supplements the content of each conflicting scene in A Rite to incorporate tonal montage

(The Eisenstein Reader 118). The dark, somber tone of the classical recording combined with the low-lighting and heavy movement on the stage incites a fearful, anxious emotional response in the audience. The light-hearted, jazz rendition, however, lit with warmer colors and performed with care-free shouts and laughter brings a moment of ease, and the audience seems to release a collective sigh of relief. This relief, however, is short-lived as the music again transitions to the classical recording. With each relapse into the harshness of the classical recording, the sacrifice of Stravinsky’s final songs draws nearer (McGregor). Eventually, the

59 absolute length of each sequence is shortened so that the flashes come in quicker succession, utilizing metric montage to create further tension.

The combination of the two contrasting recordings of “The Evocation” presents an example of Eisenstein’s overtonal montage, which moves beyond “emotional colouring to a direct physiological sensation” in response to the montage (120). Metric, rhythmic, vertical, and tonal montage unite in this segment to create a range of emotion-inducing moments on the stage.

The juxtaposition in tone between the two settings urges various emotional responses from the audience, instilling a near-panic level of fear juxtaposed with a light-hearted form of happiness.

When the two contrasting dance and lighting styles collide, the scene also displays the use of intellectual montage via several elements. The dance of death choreography from the introduction of A Rite is contrasted with the happy dancing of the Charleston. This dance, which became highly popular after World War I, occurs alongside the soldier who has lost touch with reality. In this way, the audience can see how the happy dancers on the stage are ignorant of the soldier’s plight. This asks the audience to see the symbolism of the scene as a representation of civilian ignorance of a returned soldier’s mental anguish.

When the soldier ceases observing, he proudly claims “I can hear it! I can hear it differently now!” as he begins crossing slowly and purposefully upstage of the dancing. After placing himself behind the action, the lights on the other dancers are suddenly extinguished so that the light remains only on the soldier. Riegel, his lover, is also lit as she dances alone, isolated by the light. Her movements are frantic, desperate, flailing while the other performers shake and seem to seize in the darkness behind her. As the music transitions to “The Ritual

Action of the Ancestors,” the next to last piece of music from Stravinsky’s score, the lights rise again on the performers who march in a broken chorus line toward the edge of the stage. The

60 lights are lowered on an overhead bar at the back of the stage to cast a brilliant beam on the performers’ backs, creating harsh, bright silhouettes of their bodies. As they cross downstage, the performers contort their faces into terrifying grins, like human death-masks; simultaneously, the volume increases with the drums pounding the off-beat (McGregor).

The music fades into a high-pitched mechanical reverberation sound that takes control of the scene in a further example of vertical montage as the solider begins silently shooting his pantomimed gun. This sound, like a mechanized ringing in the ears, seems to take the audience inside the mind of the soldier who does not realize his own actions. However, this time the gun is actually lethal in the context of the production and the performers collapse as the soldier continues to fire. Riegel rushes to intervene, attempting to stop him, but in his confusion, he does not know her; she is killed too. A TV screen is lowered from the ceiling with an image of the light bulb that hung down at the beginning of the production (McGregor). Then, the soldier vocalizes his shooting: “ratatatatat! ratatatatatatatatatatatatatat!” until the feedback sounds fade away, and he questions, “why did it stop?” (A Rite). He finally sees the corpses; and he sees

Riegel, lying crumpled and dead on the ground. The soldier collapses beside her body, arranging her hair, scooping her body into his arms as he weeps silently and brokenly. There is no sound in this moment; the visuals stand alone to highlight his fractured spirit and the destruction that he caused. While the vertical montage utilizes the music to intensify the terror of the soldier’s killing-spree, the silence is also implemented to deepen his sorrow after he realizes his actions.

This silence, the silence of death, seems almost deafening as it extends for more than a minute, the longest silent moment of the production, as the audience must bear witness to his heartbreak

(McGregor). Thus, vertical montage, via sound and silence, serves to intensify the perception of the action on the stage.

The silence is finally interrupted, however, when one of the dead bodies begins to vocalize “The Augurs of Spring,” the second piece of music in Stravinsky’s score, in an example of vertical montage. Although it proves unclear who initiates the vocalization, the entire chorus of the dead eventually joins the melody as the piece gains speed. The vocalization transitions to a Chinese opera style as the dead chorus rises and begins moving slowly to exit upstage in juxtaposition to the increased speed of the music (McGregor). The surge in tempo increases tension in an exemplification of metric montage. The metric montage of the vocals combined with the rising of the dead bodies also utilizes vertical montage to momentarily suggest a hopeful ending of birth and re-growth, as typically associated with the spring season. However, as the performers begin to slowly exit, the music changes to a jarring, screeching sound of the Chinese opera-styled vocalization. This harsh sound, which further contradicts the energetic first portion of the vocalization, cuts the optimism from the music by juxtaposition. The vocalized music continues after the performers disappear backstage behind the curtain, and a soft echo of their voices emits from the speakers. The vocal score ends, but the echoing final note hangs in the air and solidifies the final death march of the chorus as they exit. This echo, as further incorporation of the vertical montage, remains with the audience and seems to represent the ghost of all soldiers sacrificed to war.

Then, the soldier appears, running across the stage behind the wide black bars of the open-panel curtains at the back of the stage. He pants loudly as he runs, and the bulb on the screen begins swaying from side-to-side—like the swaying of a pendulum (McGregor).

Intellectual montage is utilized in this final scene which reinforces the negative connotations of the production’s overarching tone. The large black bars of the paneled curtain suggest a prison—perhaps the prison of the soldier’s broken mind—that he cannot escape; the soldier is

62 trapped within himself. Although the music seems to renew by going all the way back to “The

Augurs,” the soldier’s cruel, though unintentional, actions keep him from moving forward.

Instead, he runs as an exercise in futility, never reaching a destination, just retracing his own steps. Though others were killed, perhaps the soldier, then, embodies the ritual sacrifice of A

Rite. The soldier went to war an innocent, and the battlefield became his dance of death. His torment derives from the fact that he can never reach the end of the music, instead, he must continue reliving his horror, never finding peace.

Intellectual montage is utilized as the soldier runs the broken, looping journey across the entirety of the stage. The music serves to take the soldier back to the beginning, potentially resetting the cycle of his torment, while also reinforcing the physicist’s questioning about the possible cyclical nature of time. In this way, the soldier, who takes the place of Stravinsky’s sacrificed innocent, makes a further comment on the ritual sacrifice of innocents to war.

In analyzing A Rite, the elements of montage prove unmistakable and allow for a deeper understanding of this devised production’s content. Through the exploration of the evident collisions, many messages hidden beneath the surface of Bogart’s production can be uncovered.

Ultimately, Bogart’s incorporation of directorial montage practices throughout A Rite reveals elements of both plot and theme to the audience that would not have been realized without the dynamic collisions.

Chapter 5

CONCLUSION

Since the advent of the film medium, both the dramatic and cinematic art forms have been placed at odds with one another, each seeking to distinguish itself from the other. As technology continues to evolve, however, the mediums can benefit from engaging in conversation regarding the relationship between the two art forms as they exchange influences.

This study analyzes film director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein’s cinematic montage theory as it applies to contemporary devised theatrical work via directorial montage as exhibited in the devised production, A Rite. Premiering in January of 2013, this collaborative work, generated by acclaimed alternative theatre director Anne Bogart and her Saratoga International

Theater Institute (SITI) Company in collaboration with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance

Company (BTJ/AZ), was commissioned in honor of the 100 year anniversary of Igor

Stravinsky’s ballet, The Rite of Spring. The results of the current case study yield multiple implications concerning the manifestation of directorial montage in devised theatrical productions. Further, the study provides significant opportunities for future research.

Implications of the Study

As observed in late January of 2014 at the Modlin Center for the Arts at the University of

Richmond, Virginia, the collaboratively devised theatrical piece, A Rite, offers multiple instances of dynamic directorial montage throughout the production. Through an analysis framed by

Eisenstein’s film theory, these montage elements can be categorized and scrutinized to reveal further significance within the production. Intellectual montage, Eisenstein’s highest form of montage (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader 123), is ultimately achieved in this devised

64 production via the simultaneous enactment of different montage elements, repetition of action, and the intricacies of the performers’ physicality.

In film, montage is stitched together through the combination of shots or “montage cells” which, through collision, birth new significance (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader 98).

However, directorial montage occurring on the stage utilizes the performers as the compositional elements of the montage. In this manner, montage forms have the potential to co-exist on the stage, thereby occurring simultaneously beside one another, creating a multi-focal point staging.

The introductory movement sequence of A Rite exhibits instances of rhythmic montage, metric montage, and vertical montage, which ultimately combine to yield intellectual montage.

As the performers enact their individual “dance of death” sequences, they incorporate a series of daily gestures which, when combined, form a rhythmic sequence of movement. Each performer uses only enough time to complete each gesture fully before moving to the next, so that the

“absolute length” (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader 117) of the individual gesture performed in succession with the others in the dance sequence thereby determines the performer’s own tempo.

This rhythmic montage manifests as the unique tempos collide alongside one another on the stage.

Also during the dance of death scene, however, the tempos of the performers undergo further collision; the tempo set by Stravinsky’s score interrupts the established, conflicting rhythms as the performers then collectively enact choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky’s original 1913 ballet sequences. The interrupting dance movements occur at a fixed tempo, which exhibits the tenets of metric montage. After the interruptions, the tempo of each performer’s dance sequence increases in tempo, further incorporating metric montage.

As each performer maintains his/her unique, individual dance of death tempo, these tempos collide alongside one another to create multiple focal points during the sequence. The interrupting metric montage of Nijinsky’s choreography serves to first unite the dancers in an alternate dance before increasing the tempo of the individual dancers as they return to their gesture-based choreography and conflicting tempos. This interruption further serves to highlight the exemplified simultaneous montage of the unique, performer-generated dance. The exhibition of two montage categories reflects the chaotic, unpredictable nature of Stravinsky’s score which is deconstructed as a major motif throughout A Rite. These montage elements are further combined with the vertical montage of the music during this dance sequence to incite a cerebral response from the audience, thereby making use of Eisenstein’s intellectual montage.

In addition to the combination of metric and rhythmic montage utilized in the formation of the dances, and the complementary music that accompanies, intellectual montage suggests further interpretation of this opening sequence. The music that introduces A Rite does not actually introduce Stravinsky’s score, but instead plays in the ballet’s final moments. By beginning with the conclusion of Stravinsky’s work, A Rite establishes its question of time’s linearity from the very beginning of the production, while also announcing its intention to show an atypical interpretation of Stravinsky’s famed work.

Rhythmic and metric montage are similarly used in conjunction with one another in one of the production’s final scenes. In the last ten minutes of A Rite, the performers step in and out of character to comment on the production’s collaborative process. In one instance, they each sit atop stools along the edge of the stage and each performs some menial gesture, such as scratching an elbow or yawning. The gestures seem natural and unrelated at first, like a string of nervous habits. However, as time progresses, the gestures appear to be passed along from one

66 actor to the next in random succession. As the gestures travel from performer-to-performer, the absolute length of each remains unchanged in exemplification of rhythmic montage. Eventually, though, an identifiable rhythm emerges in the passing of the gestures in an example of metric montage. The tension created by the two forms of montage as they collide on the stage erupts into a cacophonous verbal quarrel amongst the actors. In this way, the simultaneous montage serves as a catalyst for the upcoming action of the narrative which leads to the final dynamic moments of the production.

Intellectual montage also reveals itself through the juxtaposition of different montage elements in the production’s concluding moments. One instance, which presents a jazz interpretation of “The Evocation of the Ancestors,” one of Stravinsky’s final songs, contrasts with its classic orchestral rendition. The lights, choreography, action, and tone assigned to the two contrasting musical versions via vertical montage are greatly juxtaposed in this scene. The jazz rendition incorporates golden-amber footlights and joyful, Charleston-style dancing, while the orchestral version includes harsh down-light replete with shadows and repeats elements of

Nijinsky’s jarring, somber choreography. These two interpretations are quickly and repeatedly spliced together while the soldier screams and prepares for his ultimate self-sacrifice. Metric montage serves to shorten the duration of each of the opposing renditions, thereby vastly increasing the tension of the scene. The combination of these montage elements first join to yield feelings of joy, anguish, and panic in the audience response through an example of overtonal montage. Furthermore, an intellectual response is sought beyond this emotional reaction; the scene becomes representational of civilian ignorance of the military’s ritualistic sacrifice of soldiers. In this way, A Rite asks the audience to see and experience both the

67 dancers’ lighthearted happiness as well as the soldier’s mental turmoil, thereby further questioning the significance of his pain.

As directorial montage manifests throughout the production, repetition also proves an important overarching montage element. Repetition remains vital to the production of A Rite in its parallel to Stravinsky’s ballet upon which the production is based. As elements recur throughout the production, their significance continues to evolve.

The first example of repetition that serves as an intellectual montage element across the whole of the performance includes the action of one performer, Akiko Aizawa, who repeatedly stands atop a stool on the stage with arms extended and an expression of joyful surprise. This brief moment occurs at multiple junctures throughout the production before its meaning finally manifests. In one scene, Aizawa stands atop the stool again and begins walking forward on a seemingly endless path of stools which appear in the instant she steps forward. As she journeys across the stage, the path continues as she walks vertically and is then held horizontally to continue; finally, she is held vertically again, five feet in the air. Her path on the stools is never interrupted as her body angle and level change.

As Aizawa journeys across the stool-tops, metric montage establishes a slow, methodical tempo to her movement. Vertical montage, however, through spoken word and recording, set a contradictory tone over the seemingly peaceful progression of her steps. Pessimistic words and harsh, mechanical speaker feedback add a sense of the ominous to her journey that foreshadows a dark conclusion to the spring season mentioned in Aizawa’s recitation. These two elements combine to create Eisenstein’s intellectual montage. In this example, the combination of these montage forms thereby forces the audience to intellectually, rather than emotionally, respond to

68 this event and see the dark foreshadowing as it links Aizawa’s path on the stools to that of the soldier—the character who becomes the primary vehicle of sacrifice in the production.

A second significant element of repetition occurs via a simple action of throwing stools across the stage—activity that occurs multiple times throughout the production. Metric montage establishes a fixed tempo for the throwing and catching process of the stools. While originally this action seems to only occur in order to transfer the set pieces on and off the stage, it is later paralleled to the temporal wanderings of the physicist, a primary character in the story. As he questions the suspected linearity of time, the tossing of the stools pauses, reverses in direction, slows, quickens, and reverses again in order to mirror potential alternate understandings of time.

In this final exemplar of the stool-tossing repetition, the tempo established through metric montage in the first occurrences of this action is thereby altered in its final presentation as it comes to symbolize an alternate version of time. This action is further attributed meaning through intellectual montage as the earlier moments of this action throughout the production are attributed significance in their representation of time, thereby forcing the audience members to question time’s nature for themselves.

Intellectual montage, according to Eisenstein’s film theory, provides an avenue not only to direct audience emotion, but to begin “likewise developing and directing the entire thought process” (110). In this way, intellectual montage, which cinematically holds the position of greatest regard, therefore, also transfers its lofty status to the stage as well. The repetition in A

Rite clearly becomes a montage element which can further be interpreted for its level of significance through intellectual montage across the broader structure of the production as a whole. Repeated instances of montage, such as Aizawa’s stool-top journey and the throwing/catching of the stools, are presented without assigned significance until later in the

69 production process. As with the colliding elements of Eisenstein’s intellectual montage, “each individual piece,” or in the case of the stage production, each scene, “is already almost abstract in relation to the action as a whole” (Eisenstein, The Eisenstein Reader 108). Only when these repeated montage elements are combined can intellectual understanding occur.

In A Rite, montage is often achieved through the physicality of the performers. In SITI’s case, this physical ability derives largely from training in Bogart’s physical Viewpoints exercises which further influence Composition as well as performance. Physical training remains quite common amongst contemporary alternative theatre practitioners in their creation of devised theatre work. As suggested in the review of published literature in Chapter Two of this study, the physicality of montage onstage proves of primary importance to many experimental theatre artists. In her training of SITI actors, Bogart’s focus on the different, specific physical

Viewpoints directly relates to the elements of montage observed in A Rite, which ultimately allows for the full achievement of intellectual montage. The incorporation of the physical

Viewpoints fosters increasing awareness amongst the actors, thereby allowing for them to participate in rigorous physicality onstage and produce dynamic units of action for Composition.

This physicality proves vital to achieving Bogart’s resulting montage and adding multi-layered meaning to the production.

While all of Bogart’s Viewpoints exercises clearly enable performers in achieving desired directorial montage, the physical Viewpoints of tempo and duration prove very evident in the creation of the aforementioned examples of rhythmic and metric montage evidenced in

Aizawa’s path atop the stools and the throwing and catching of the stools. As their titles suggest, these two physical Viewpoints ask the performers to consider the “rate of speed at which a movement occurs,” or its tempo, while duration refers to “how long a movement or sequence of

70 movements continues” (Bogart and Landau 8). As the performers grow sensitive to the manipulation of time in these ways, they also become more pliable in regard to the formation of these patterns in a montage sequence as directed by Bogart. Repetition, another of Bogart’s physical Viewpoints, also becomes an element of intellectual montage in A Rite as discussed above. Incorporated in the Viewpoints training regarding repetition are the concepts of internal repetition: “repeating a movement within your own body” and external repetition: “repeating the shape, tempo, gesture, etc., of something outside your own body” (9). Because of this training, the SITI performers are accustomed to searching for such patterns in their own movement and in the physicality of their fellow performers as well. Due to the repetitive nature of A Rite as based on Stravinsky’s ballet, such repetition becomes an inherent portion of the resulting directorial montage.

Similarly, the incorporation of the physical Viewpoint of gesture becomes germane to the formation of the dance of death sequence. This sequence is constructed of quotidian, or as

Bogart’s training denotes “behavioral,” gestures (Bogart and Landau 9). Such gestures, she claims, belong “to the concrete, physical world of human behavior as we observe it in our everyday reality” (Bogart and Landau 9).

Manipulation of the Viewpoint of shape can also be observed as Aizawa journeys across the stools. Shape, as created by “lines,” “curves,” or a combination of the two can either be

“stationary” or “moving through space,” and is further made by “the body in space. . . . the body in relationship to architecture. . . . [or] the body in relation to other bodies” (Bogart and Landau

9). As Aizawa undertakes her journey, the vertical, linear position of her body creates a moving shape in relationship to the bodies of the other performers as well as to the architecture of the stools, thereby providing dynamic picturization. This physical journey also relies on the

Viewpoint of topography, which refers to “the landscape, the floor pattern, the design we create in movement through space” as Aizawa’s path winds across the stage (11).

In A Rite, the physical training of the performers becomes a key element in the generation of material through Bogart’s developed devising practice of Composition for directorial montage. This physicality combines to create the various forms of montage which further contribute to the ultimate realization of intellectual montage on the stage.

As evidenced throughout the production of A Rite, devised theatre proves capable of achieving Eisenstein’s concepts of montage through the incorporation of intellectual montage.

Intellectual montage is further achieved through various categories of Eisenstein’s montage occurring simultaneously on the stage, repetition of action to create an extended form of intellectual montage which develops meaning over the span of the entire production, as well as the performer’s physical exactitude which further serves as a montage element. Therefore, I argue that Eisenstein’s concepts of montage as developed for film can manifest dynamically and effectively in live theatrical devised performance. Although different than its cinematic manifestation, Eisenstein’s montage does, in fact, manifest through a reliance on devised theatrical practices and transfers to the stage, creating dynamic collisions that provide insight into the deeper layers of the performance.

Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research

Due to accessibility and efforts at maintaining the determined scope of this thesis via a selection process, there are several limitations to this study. These limitations offer avenues for additional and complimenting research and scholarship.

This thesis is limited to an analysis of a devised production that was collaboratively created by the SITI Company and the BTJ/AZ Dance Company. While the collaborative nature

72 of the developmental process of the production reflects a primary tenant of Bogart’s work, the directorial input of Bill T. Jones of the BTJ/AZ Dance Company, as well as the contribution of the dancers in the company, undoubtedly influenced Bogart’s realization of directorial montage in A Rite. Additional data could be gleaned from an analysis of a production in which Bogart solely directed the members of her SITI Company. Due to the strict physical training in both

Viewpoints and Composition undertaken by the company members, the SITI performers are therefore ingrained in these alternative methods for creating and manipulating time and space on the stage. As this training provides a unique, shared vocabulary for performers and director, their working and creative process when embarked upon without the influence of other collaborating artists could ultimately provide alternative information regarding the realization of directorial montage in devised theatre.

My analysis only focused on one of Bogart’s devised works as the basis for this case study. A complimenting study could be enacted which examines multiple devised productions directed by Bogart over an extended period of time. A study of the directorial montage in multiple productions would yield broader perspectives regarding her specific incorporation of the technique in performance.

With the SITI Company, Bogart utilizes a very specific approach to generating material for production via her developed Viewpoints training in conjunction with her Composition process. This working process as refined with her company yields unique results on the stage.

There are a variety of ways in which alternative theatre practitioners generate material during the rehearsals process that ultimately leads to realized directorial montage onstage. A study of the evident directorial montage in devised productions directed by different directors, using

73 alternative approaches to training and the development of original performance units, would obviously offer additional and complimenting data for analysis.

The Broad Scope

Devised theatrical performances, which seek to create original dramatic works, often

“address the changes brought about by the socio-political and cultural climate” of the time in which they are created (Oddey 2). As SITI Company members and their collaborators generate material, Bogart incorporates directorial montage as she weaves the material together, composing collisions to create further meaning on the stage to cerebrally involve audience members in the production. The devised work, A Rite, asks audience members “to reflect upon the human condition: sacrifice; creative and spiritual rebirth; [and] the individual against or with the community” via the incorporation of directorial montage (Bogart and Jones). The use of directorial montage helps to guide such intellectual reflections of the audience members, thereby leading them to not only see and hear the action of the production, but to also feel and analyze that material in its relation to their own lives. Thus, when contextualized through dramatic performance, the incorporation of Eisenstein’s cinematic montage techniques can offer an avenue which promotes deeper understanding for theatre audiences. As exemplified in A Rite, when cinematic techniques are infused with the collaborative formation of devised work, dynamic and powerful collisions can clearly manifest.

WORKS CITED

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A Rite. Dir. Anne Bogart and Bill T. Jones. Modlin Center for the Arts, Richmond. Jan. 2014.

“A Rite.” SITI Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013.

Ahlander, Astri Von Arbin. “Anne Bogart.” The Days of Yore. N.p., 27 June 2010. Web.

Artaud, Antonin. The Theatre and Its Double. Trans. Victor Corti. Richmond: Oneworld

Classics, 2010. Print.

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VITA

Alesa McGregor was born in Tyler, Texas. After completing her work at Lindale High

School in 2007, she entered Texas A&M University-Commerce, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Theatre in May, 2011. In August of that same year, she enrolled in the graduate program at Texas A&M University-Commerce, from which she received a Masters of Arts in Theatre degree with a graduate certificate in Film Studies in August, 2014. While a graduate student at Texas A&M University-Commerce, she was awarded the Texas Educational

Theatre Association’s Upper Division/Graduate Founder’s Scholarship in 2013 and 2014. She is a member of the Texas Educational Theatre Association, the Association for Theatre in Higher

Education, and the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association.

Permanent Address: 13597 CR 4122 Lindale, TX 75771 Email: [email protected]